"Can't sell, don't let kill, 2000 yuan must be spent every day, without any income, my hard years of savings can support up to six months, where to go in the future, think about it is a headache." Northeast Cao Yongliang farmed 100 sika deer in Kunming, Yunnan Recently, he could not eat well and could not sleep well and fell into persistent anxiety.
After the outbreak of the New Coronary Pneumonia, the major hidden dangers posed by wild animal trading and overeating to public health security have aroused great concern from the society, and China has decided to ban all wild animals.
The captive wild animal industry has developed in China for many years, and has formed a huge industry with tens of millions of practitioners and a scale of hundreds of billions. After wild animal fasting, where should they and theirs go?
The picture shows a worker feeding sika deer in a sika deer breeding factory. Photo by Liu Ranyang
Large-scale industry
"From my grandfather to my son, a family of four generations made a living by raising deer." Cao Yongliang's hometown is Xifeng County, Tieling City, Liaoning Province, known as China's deer town. In Xifeng County, artificial breeding of sika deer has a long history. As of July 2019, the county has more than 200 deer farms, and the number of sika deer breeding is 35,000.
In 2006, he brought his own technology to Yunnan to develop artificial breeding of sika deer. In his view, sika deer are all treasures, "antler, deer bone, deer blood, etc. have medicinal value, venison, deer tendon, etc. can be eaten, and sika deer can develop hundreds of products."
The reporter saw in his office in the sika deer farm on the outskirts of Kunming that the "National Key Protection Wildlife Domestication and Breeding Permit" was hung on the left, a decomposed edible structure of the sika deer was posted on the right, and Kunming City on January 28 was posted on the right. Notice of the prohibition on the transshipment and sale of artificially propagated wild animals at Sunrise Tower.
"In the past two months, multiple departments have been visiting continuously, asking us to do a good job of disinfection, sealing all sika deer, and cautioning against trading." Cao Yongliang said that he was more worried than ever about sika deer jumping from the farm, "This will be Misconception that it is smuggling will result in heavy fines. "
In the product exhibition hall of the farm, the reporter saw antler slices, dried venison dry meat, deer bone wine, antler bracelets, buckskin gloves, and antler hanging lamps ... The sika deer breeding industry has formed intensive production.
Sika deer are China's national first-level protected wild animals, but deer breeding has formed a complete industrial chain. Cao Yongliang introduced that in addition to deer breeding, turtles, fur animals, snakes, crocodiles, frogs, etc. have also formed intensive production.
According to data released by the Chinese Academy of Engineering, in 2016, the direct employment of the wild animal breeding industry has reached 14.089 million people, and the direct output value created is about 520.616 billion yuan. After the outbreak of the epidemic, more than 153,000 wild animal breeding sites were detected across China, and hundreds of wild animal species were raised and reproduced artificially.
The picture shows some sika deer products displayed in the product hall of the breeding factory. Photo by Liu Ranyang
Waiting for a "white list"
On February 24, the "Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on the Comprehensive Prohibition of Illegal Wildlife Trade, the Elimination of the Abuse of Wild Animals, and the Effective Protection of the People's Health and Safety" issued a comprehensive decision to prohibit the consumption of "an important ecological, scientific, "Terrestrial wild animals of social value" and other terrestrial wild animals, including artificially propagated and reared terrestrial wild animals.
With the promulgation of the National People's Congress Standing Committee's comprehensive ban on the consumption of wild animals, the process of legislation on the prohibition of wild animals has been accelerating. At present, Guangdong, Tianjin, Fujian, Hubei, Qinghai, Gansu, Chongqing, Jiangxi, Hunan, Shanxi and other provinces and cities have issued or revised local regulations to prohibit the consumption of wild animals.
"If I don't let venison be sold and only make medicinal materials, I have no profit at all." This put Cao Yongliang in a difficult position. He is willing to cooperate with the decision to prohibit the consumption of artificial breeding of wild animals, and hope that the government can determine whether the sika deer can be raised as soon as possible? Can it be eaten?
On April 8, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China published the "National Catalog of Animal Genetic Resources (Draft for Comments)", which is currently soliciting opinions from the public until May 8.
In this catalog, a total of 31 animals are included, and 4 non-edible animals (mink, silver fox, blue fox, raccoon dog) are removed, and 27 species can be bred and eaten, of which 18 are traditional livestock and poultry : Pigs, ordinary cattle, zebu, buffalo, yak, large-scale cattle, sheep, goats, horses, donkeys, camels, rabbits, chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, pigeons, quails; there are 9 types of special livestock: sika deer , Red deer, reindeer, alpaca, guinea fowl, pheasant, partridge, mallard, ostrich.
Li Chunguang, a lawyer from Yunnan Lingyun Law Office, told reporters that the animals in the "National Catalog of Genetic Resources for Livestock and Poultry" belong to livestock and poultry. The provisions of the "Livestock Law of the People's Republic of China" apply, and are allowed to be bred and traded in compliance with the national quarantine requirements. , Transportation and consumption.
The name of the sika deer appears in the "white list" of edible animals that are seeking comment. Cao Yongliang said, "Like eating half a heart-shaped pill, in any case, you must insist on feeding the sika deer, waiting for the" National Animal Genetic Resources Catalog "to be finalized."
The picture shows Cao Yongliang's office with all kinds of wild animal domestication and breeding licenses and sika deer structure edible exploded view. Photo by Liu Ranyang
Compensation plan is on the way
In fact, the vast majority of wild animal breeds raised artificially are not included in the "National Catalogue of Animal and Poultry Genetic Resources (Draft for Comment)".
Less than 100 kilometers away from Cao Yongliang's sika deer breeding factory, the blue peacock breeder Ma Wenhua is struggling to support, and has cut the peacock feed by half in order to reduce expenditures. Nearly 5,000 blue peacocks survived hunger and starvation.
In 2009, under the background of "Support for Entrepreneurship Policies for Special Wildlife Breeding", Ma Wenhua resigned and started business, and began to engage in the domestication and breeding of blue peacock.
The market's demand for blue peacocks is mainly edible. After the decision to ban wild animals, Ma Wenhua borrowed money from relatives and friends in order to maintain the breeding plant, and already owed 1.8 million yuan of foreign debt. "The daily feeding cost of Blue Peacock is nearly 3000 yuan."
It ’s not just blue peacocks who are starving, some media reports that a snake farm in a certain place has reduced the cost of feed from 6 tons to 1 ton due to high maintenance costs. More than 100 small snakes were eaten when the snake was the most.
At present, after the wild animal breeding factories in various regions are sealed, the farmed wild animals cannot be eaten, sold, killed or released. Farmers still have to invest funds to maintain them, and most of them are in trouble.
Not long ago, the State Forestry and Grassland Bureau has made it clear that those who are legally cultured and closed according to regulations are the compensation targets, and no compensation will be given to those who obtain administrative licenses or engage in illegal cultivation.
Regarding the compensation issues that farmers are concerned about, the State Forestry and Grassland Administration requires that the competent forestry and grassland authorities at all levels should report to the local government in a timely manner on the basis of a clear understanding and scientific evaluation, and put forward reasonable compensation suggestions and clarify the scope of compensation.
As of now, not many localities have introduced relevant compensation methods. Luo Xu, a professor at the School of Biodiversity Conservation of Southwest Forestry University, said, "Many wild animals raised are mainly food, and local governments should issue compensation and settlement plans as soon as possible."
Luo Xu suggested that the relevant farmers should plan the road of transformation as soon as possible, and the transformation can be changed to the national-level livestock and poultry genetic resources protection list species that are closer to the environment, habits and technology of the previous animal breeding. "This requires less site renovation and technical re-learning, and the transformation will be faster."
Chen Mingyong, a professor at the School of Life Sciences of Yunnan University, said that the rational development and utilization of artificially raised wild animals includes many aspects, and eating is just one of the ways. "Innovative utilization methods are needed, such as the conversion of artificially cultured wild animals into ecotourism.
The picture shows the artificially cultivated wild animals blue peacock, colorful chicken, pangolin and black bear. Photo courtesy of Yunnan Forest Police
Where are "them"?
In recent days, some farms have given up management and secretly released wild animals after wild animal fasting. Professor Luo Xu believes that the number of existing wild animals in captivity is huge, and how to properly dispose of them will bring huge tests to all regions.
To dispose of artificially raised wild animals, the State Forestry and Grassland Bureau proposes four disposal methods:
Scientific implementation goes back to nature. For the wild animals that are naturally distributed in China, choose the natural distribution area or historical distribution area of the species in a good habitat, control the number of releases within the scientifically calculated habitat capacity, and conduct health observation and detection of the returnees and adaptability Prepared and put into the natural plan only after being scientifically approved and implemented, to ensure that it does not cause ecological hazards; for large inventory and beyond the capacity of the local habitat, the forestry and grassland authorities at the provincial level and above shall coordinate and implement cross-regional, phased and batched decentralized implementation Let it go to nature.
Converted to non-edible legal uses. For wildlife under cultivation with medicinal and ornamental value, the work of administrative licensing and information services should be expedited in accordance with the law and regulations, and the stocks should be digested faster.
Foreign wild animals that are abandoned by farmers in the fasting range shall not be allowed to return to nature. They may be entrusted to be raised or handed over to qualified shelters and rescue agencies. In the future, they shall be reasonably allocated according to the needs of scientific research and popular science education.
For the wild animals under cultivation that can not be dealt with by the above three measures, timely harmless treatment shall be carried out.
Author: Miao Ultra