The uncivilized behaviors and illegal behaviors of Internet celebrities involving wild animals reflect a new challenge faced by the protection and management of wild animals under the Internet economy.
It is necessary to strengthen legal education for Internet celebrities and fans, and increase law enforcement efforts.
In the process of comprehensively improving the public's ecological civilization literacy, the improvement of the relevant literacy of netizens should be one of the priorities.
Xie Yi, Professor, School of Economics and Management, Beijing Forestry University
Recently, the incident of a food blogger named "Tizi" who filmed a video of boiling and grilling sharks caused heated discussions.
Some popular science bloggers reported that this shark is an internationally endangered wildlife shark (also known as the great white shark), which belongs to the second-level national protected animal.
On July 31, the police in Nanchong City, Sichuan Province stated that after identification, the shark in the "Tizi" video was indeed a man-eating shark.
On August 1, the Nanchong Municipal Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs responded that the sharks originated from the coastal areas of Fujian, and the relevant personnel have been controlled by the police.
"We are contacting the relevant judicial inspection department to test whether the shark is a juvenile or an adult in order to assess its value."
This case brings the topic of online wildlife protection into our field of vision.
Today, with the continuous development of informatization, the Internet is becoming another battlefield for wildlife protection.
Why are videos that endanger wild animals openly spread on the Internet?
What measures should regulators, platforms, etc. take respectively to defend the Internet, a new battlefield for wildlife protection?
Video of endangering wild animals appears on the Internet
The Internet celebrity who eats endangered animals, "Raisin" is not an exception.
Last year, the Tanmen Coastal Police Station in Hainan Province received a tip that a blogger named "A Zhuang Guo himself" on Weibo recorded a video of cooking and eating snails, a national second-class protected animal.
After investigation, Wu Mouqing purchased a 15-centimeter long snail at a fishery Co., Ltd. in Tanmen Town, Qionghai City, at a price of 70 yuan, and presented it to the blogger Zou Mouzhuang.
Zou Mouzhuang put the conch on a plate to cook and eat, and recorded a video of the process and posted it on the online social platform.
In addition to eating protected animals, live animal broadcasts and illegal capture are also acts that harm wild animals.
According to the China Voice of China Central Radio and Television's "News Hyperlink" report, recently, there have been several breeders and anchors who sell live monkeys on the Internet. Suspected of animal cruelty.
The anchor group named "Cuihua Wine and Vegetables" broadcasted the whole process of hunting wild bamboo rats, which are "three national protected animals".
After they were still caught, they angered the two captured bamboo rats with branches and lured them to fight each other, causing one of them to be bitten with blood.
"The above-mentioned behaviors are obviously uncivilized. They are incompatible with respecting nature, conforming to nature and protecting nature, which are required by the construction of an ecologically civilized society, as well as public order and good customs." Xie Yi, a professor at the School of Economics and Management of Beijing Forestry University, said in an interview with reporters. Sharks have been included in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, and have also been approved by my country's fishery management department as a national second-class protected animal. Unauthorized use is illegal.
The behavior of "Tizi" violated Article 21 of the Wildlife Protection Law, which "prohibits hunting and killing of wildlife under special state protection", and Article 30 "prohibits the production, operation and use of wildlife under key state protection and its Food made from products”, etc., and Article 12 of the “Regulations on the Protection of Aquatic Wild Animals”, “It is prohibited to capture and kill aquatic wild animals under special state protection”.
Zhang Yu, a lawyer from Beijing Huatai Law Firm, also said that the Internet celebrity's behavior has been suspected of constituting the crime of illegally acquiring precious and endangered wildlife products.
She could face at least five years in prison or short-term detention and a fine.
Regarding the use of monkey live broadcasts and other behaviors, Hu Huijian, a researcher at the Institute of Zoology of the Guangdong Academy of Sciences, said that all types of monkeys are national protected animals, and artificial breeding of monkeys requires a "Wild Animal Domestication and Breeding License".
If the individual or unit does not apply for relevant certificates, artificial breeding of monkeys is illegal.
Even if the breeder has relevant certificates, from the perspective of wildlife protection, using monkeys to live broadcast goods is not only against the nature of animals, but also not conducive to the protection of wild animals.
The Internet has become a new battlefield for wildlife protection
The illegal trade and overeating of wild animals pose a huge threat to wildlife protection.
Why are the illegal trade and indiscriminate eating of wild animals repeated?
Xie Yi said that the uncivilized behaviors and illegal behaviors of Internet celebrities involving wild animals reflected a new challenge to the protection and management of wildlife under the rapid development of the Internet economy, especially the self-media economy.
"As far as online celebrities are concerned, there may be two situations: one is that they do not know their actions are illegal, and they do it unintentionally, that is, they do not know the law and are illegal; Illegal." Xie Yi believes that for the former, it is necessary to strengthen legal education for Internet celebrities and fans; for the latter, it is necessary to strengthen the crackdown on law enforcement.
"No matter what the circumstances are, the behavior of netizens and fans is uncivilized. This also shows that in the process of comprehensively improving the public's ecological civilization literacy, improving the related literacy of netizens should be one of the priorities. ." Xie Yi emphasized.
The cyber field has become a new battlefield for wildlife protection.
In order to strengthen the fight against illegal trade and indiscriminate eating of online wildlife, in 2017, my country's first Internet enterprise alliance to combat illegal online wildlife trade was established.
In 2021, the alliance has deleted or blocked a total of more than 11.6 million information on endangered species and their products from its platform; Internet companies have provided implementation standards and reference norms for combating illegal online wildlife trade.
By establishing alliances, formulating and publishing group standards, and deleting illegal advertisements, Chinese Internet companies have played an active role in combating illegal trade in wildlife.
Xie Yi said, but due to the large number of supervision objects, long supervision time, and heavy supervision tasks, the Internet has become a "difficult place for supervision", and it is necessary to play the role of industry self-discipline.
Nowadays, the behavior of Internet celebrities playing uncivilized or illegal videos such as cruelty to wild animals to fans is a new proposition that should be paid attention to around the self-discipline of the Internet industry with the rapid development of self-media.
Multi-party cooperation to establish a long-term protection mechanism
In order to strengthen the protection of wild animals, many countries have strengthened legislation on wild animal protection, animal and plant quarantine and epidemic prevention.
In my country's current legal system, laws directly involving wild animals mainly include the Wildlife Protection Law, the Fisheries Law, the Animal Epidemic Prevention Law, and the Entry and Exit Animal and Plant Quarantine Law.
At the same time, related to the Wildlife Protection Law is the Environmental Protection Law.
Xie Yi said that compared with traditional wildlife protection, wildlife protection in the online field is more special.
For example, the above-mentioned wild animal cruelty incidents spread quickly, have a wide impact, and have a strong time lag in investigation and punishment.
It is necessary to strengthen the cooperation between management departments and the Internet industry. Management departments should promote the improvement of relevant systems, and Internet companies must effectively fulfill their self-discipline obligations.
"For example, in response to the above-mentioned behaviors involving illegal consumption of nationally protected wild animals, relevant Internet celebrities should be blacklisted, and a group of Internet celebrities who have been punished for such incidents but have been corrected should be organized to develop personal statements and strengthen Internet celebrities and fans. Our awareness of the rule of law." Xie Yi emphasized that without fans, there would be no Internet celebrities.
We should also start with fans, and the government and society should form a joint force to jointly pay attention to and improve the ecological civilization literacy, public welfare and public morality of the majority of netizens.
A warning should also be given to fans who have repeatedly been involved in online wildlife violations.
Behind every Internet celebrity overeating case, there is basically the illegal trade of wild animals.
Xie Yi said that with the continuous and rapid development of the Internet economy, the issue of wildlife protection on the Internet platform should receive greater attention, and efforts to crack down on illegal wildlife trade should be stepped up.
"It is also necessary to strengthen the connection between executions of wildlife-related cases." Researcher Lu Lei, director of the Discipline Planning Office of the School of Law, Renmin University of China, said that it is necessary to use the existing "two-law connection" platform for administrative law enforcement and criminal justice in various regions to improve wildlife-related The working mechanism for the connection between executions of animal protection cases; strengthen the coordination between the procuratorial organs and administrative law enforcement departments, including market supervision departments, forestry departments, environmental protection departments and other administrative departments, as well as postal management departments and network platform supervision departments closely related to wildlife trade etc., conduct regular interactions.
Wan Ziming, deputy director of the Department of Animal and Plant Protection of the State Forestry and Grass Administration, also said that in order to realize a comprehensive and long-term mechanism to control the illegal trade of wild animals and plants on the Internet, the competent government departments need to improve various aspects such as legislation and regulations, law enforcement supervision, and department coordination. control mechanism.
The Wildlife Protection Law, which is being revised, will further clarify the responsibilities of online platforms.