MONTH: SEPTEMBER 2006
Chinese public rejects trophy hunt auction
CHENGDU--The China State Forestry
Administration on August 11 indefinitely postponed a scheduled auction
of 289 licenses to allow foreigners to hunt animals of 14 species.
"The auction will be held in a proper way after soliciting
suggestions from the public," said State Forestry Administration
spokesperson Cao Qingyao.
Three days after the Beijing Youth Daily published an exposé
of the auction plans, "The response from the public is beyond
our expectation," admitted State Forestry Administration deputy
director of wildlife protection Wang Wei.
To have been held in Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan province,
the auction was presented as an improvement over a permitting system
that since 1985 has allowed 1,101 foreigners to kill 1,347 trophy
animals, paying $36.4 million to do so. Minimum bids included $40,000
for a wild yak, $10,000 for an Argali sheep, $6,000 for a red deer,
$2,5000 for a bhanal (blue sheep), and $200 for a wolf.
The auction would have allowed foreigners to hunt at sites in Sichuan,
Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Xinjiang provinces.
"The hunting quotas we set for each species this time are quite
limited, and only the old are allowed to be killed, so as to ensure
that trophy hunting would not have a negative impact on the wildlife
population," Wang Wei told the Youth Daily. "The money
from the auction will be used for protection of endangered species."
"We are against auction hunts," countered Yang Xin, head
of the Chengdu environmental group Green River. "Some people
may get the idea that the government is loosening protection of
wild animals and those who have money can do what they want,"
Yang Xin said.
Studies done by Green River of the Hoh Xil habitat for endangered
Tibetan antelopes in southwestern China, and around the source of
the Yangtze River in Qinghai province, "have found that the
wildlife population did begin to recover after the local government
confiscated guns from local residents, but we are not very sure
if their wild population are stable enough for hunting," Yang
Xin added. "Even if the number of some wild animal was so much
as to cause trouble," Yang Xin continued, "trophy hunting
is not the best solution now," he said.
|
