Reporters Song Xiaodong, Yang Lin

  After 30 years of raising parrots, why did you "suddenly" break the law?

In Shangqiu, Henan, hundreds of parrot farmers are frowning, and they are still a little frightened.

  The Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporter learned that the local 30-year history of artificial breeding and breeding of Fei's peony parrots has been recognized by the public security departments of other places as illegally selling protected wild animals.

The sale of 400,000 parrots has been blocked, relevant personnel have been arrested, and many farmers have broken their capital chains, facing the dilemma of "cannot afford", "cannot sell" and "cannot release".

  A large backlog and death of parrots

  When arriving at Ninglou Village, Liangyuan District, Shangqiu City, the reporter could hear the singing of birds one after another outside the villager Wang Cuilan's house.

The three-storey house has people on the first floor, and the second and third floors are full of bird cages. Many species, including the Fei's peony parrot, are kept, but some bird cages are already empty.

  Wang Cuilan said that in 2019, he had just invested more than 200,000 yuan in the expansion, but he did not expect to stop selling birds after one year.

At present, the more than 1,000 pairs of parrots in the family cannot be sold. Without income, they cannot buy feed. Every day, 30 or 40 birds are starved to death.

  In the house of Yu Fulin, a farmer in the same village, the reporter saw that some of the feed bags had bottomed out, and the steamer for birds was covered with dust.

  “It turns out that the birds were fed finely, mixed with two or three eggs per catty of rice and steamed them in a pot. They were fed two or three meals a day. Now they all sweep some bran shells from the ground and can’t eat one meal a day.” Yu Fulin said, family raised After 2,000 pairs of parrots, the monthly feed cost will cost 15,000 yuan. Now that they are not allowed to sell birds, there is no income, and hundreds of birds have starved to death.

  Zhang Wei, a villager in Luozhuang, a demonstration area of ​​urban-rural integration in Shangqiu City, who has been breeding parrots for 15 years, also suffered a disaster.

There used to be 2500 pairs in the family's inventory, but now there are only 1700 pairs left.

From the beginning of the new crown epidemic to the present, a parrot has not been sold. "In order to feed these birds, I have owed almost 100,000 yuan in debt."

  Shangqiu has a 30-year history of artificial breeding of Fei's peony parrot.

A person from the Propaganda Department of the Shangqiu Municipal Party Committee stated that as the largest artificial breeding base for parrots in the country, Shangqiu has 837 parrot farmers and more than 1 million parrots. Among them, there are about 400,000 Fei's peony parrots and nearly 300 farmers. .

However, starting from the second half of 2020, the public security departments in Jiangsu, Jiangxi and other places have successively investigated many cases of buying and selling Fei's peony parrots, which were identified as illegal sales of national key wild protected animals, traced back to Shangqiu, and some farmers have been held criminally responsible.

  The reporter learned from the Natural Resources and Planning Bureau of Shangqiu that the public security departments in other places have repeatedly detained Shangqiu parrot farmers on the grounds of illegally selling national key wild protected animals, causing the local Fei's peony parrot market to be interrupted and the farmers’ sales chain Broken, a large number of parrots are overstocked in farmers.

In order to save costs, farmers reduce feed input.

Coupled with the low temperature in winter, a large number of parrots die, and some farmers face the risk of returning to poverty.

  After several policy adjustments, "characteristic breeding" has become an "illegal industry"

  The reporter found that most of the artificially bred Fei's peony parrots in Shangqiu were exotic species. They were historically included in the list of commercially available wild animals approved by relevant departments. However, due to multiple policy adjustments, this characteristic breeding has gradually become " Illegal industry".

  The reporter's investigation learned that the former State Forestry Administration issued a list of wild animals with mature domestication and breeding technology for commercial management and utilization in 2003 (Lin Hufa [2003] No. 121), stipulating that the Fei's peony parrot can be used for commercial management. .

Since 2003, parrot breeding has developed rapidly in Shangqiu. Due to the low threshold and good market efficiency, breeding Fei's peony parrot has become the first choice for Shangqiu farmers and laid-off workers to start a business and get rich, and the scale of breeding is rapidly expanding.

  On October 23, 2012, the former State Forestry Administration issued an announcement to abolish this list.

In November 2019, the protection level of the Fei's peony parrot was upgraded from national level three to national level two, and trading without a license would violate the criminal law.

  Some farmers reported that the local area had not conducted effective guidance and management in accordance with laws and regulations before.

  "We didn't know about these policies before. We must know that breaking the law must not be done." Yu Fuling said, "We are not secretly raising and selling parrots. At least we have to tell us in advance. We broke the law and we were wronged."

  The reporter also found that due to the long time of artificial breeding of the Fei's peony parrot, the opinions of different regions on its judicial appraisal were different, which resulted in different law enforcement standards in different regions.

  The materials provided by the Shangqiu Forest Public Security Bureau show that the bureau has repeatedly entrusted the Forest Public Security Judicial Appraisal Center of the National Forestry and Grass Administration to appraise the local artificially bred Fei's peony parrot.

Due to the long breeding time, many hybrid varieties are produced, and the identification result issued is "unsure of specific species".

As a criminal case, there is no basis for filing a case, so Shangqiu Forest Police has not investigated and handled related cases.

However, since the end of 2019, the forest public security departments in Jiangxi, Zhejiang and other places have repeatedly arrested the sale of Fei's peony parrots in Shangqiu City on the grounds of illegal sales of national key protected wild animals based on judicial identification issued by other domestic identification agencies. Quotient.

  In addition, most of the farmers in Shangqiu did not apply for artificial breeding licenses and operating licenses.

Many farmers said that they do not know where to apply for the permit, and no relevant department has ever supervised or supervised this.

  Zhang Wei said that in 2012, he went to the Shangqiu City Administrative Service Office to inquire about how to apply for relevant licenses, but the response he got was "not to apply for such certificates."

  Farmer Xia Yuhua consulted the Shangqiu Forestry Bureau many years ago about the issue of permits, but did not get an effective response, "Everyone hasn't applied for a permit, and no one has been in charge of it for 20 to 30 years. I thought it was not necessary."

  Clarify legal ambiguities and properly dispose of stock parrots as soon as possible

  Legal sources said that this is not the first time that social disputes have occurred in the field of domestic wildlife protection.

Since the judicial determination of whether some artificially raised species are wild protected animals is relatively vague, the law enforcement level is not easy to operate, which is not conducive to grassroots judicial practice.

  Wang Sihua, a lawyer from Henan Shengda Law Firm, said that the protection between artificially farmed animals and real wild animals should not be equated.

Regarding this type of issue, in the course of judicial practice, the past judgments vary.

The Supreme People's Court issued guidelines on the protection of wild animals on December 18, 2020, but there is no relevant guidance document on how to effectively and accurately distinguish between artificially raised animals and protected wild animals.

Therefore, we call on the relevant departments to refine and introduce operational clauses as soon as possible to accurately define the distinction between artificial breeding and wild animals, so that farmers can have laws to follow, and can effectively regulate the artificial breeding market.

  Many farmers also called for a distinction between buying and selling farmed parrots and wild parrots.

Yu Fulin said that the same thing is breeding. Pigs, chickens, ducks, sheep, and cattle can be sold, but it is illegal to sell the birds that you raise. This truth does not make sense.

  "The Fei's peony parrots that we are raising are indeed bred by us from generation to generation. The state can identify it and cannot judge us illegally with a'one size fits all'." said farmer Liu Zhongyao.

  In response to the current difficulty in handling a large number of Fei's peony parrots, farmers are eagerly looking forward to the local government's early introduction of policies to help resolve them.

  Xia Yuhua said that a parrot is a living thing, and it takes one day to live a day. If it can't be solved by the Spring Festival, more than 1,000 pairs of parrots in my family will die.

"It's an account that doesn't count the money. No matter how small the bird is, it's fate. It hurts to watch starving to death." Wang Cuilan said.

  The Bureau of Natural Resources and Planning of Shangqiu City stated that it has reported the actual situation of Fei's peony parrot breeding in Shangqiu to relevant higher-level departments, striving to allow artificial breeding populations for commercial operation and utilization; the local area also plans to coordinate certain compensation funds to properly reset the parrots. In addition, reasonable compensation will be given to the affected poor households with registered files to avoid returning to poverty.