Police in North China's Hebei Province, working with bird protection societies, rescued more than 36,400 migratory birds - about one sixth of which are from an endangered species - from being sent to southern China for consumption, news site thepaper.cn reported Wednesday.
Rescuers looking through the bird traffickers' base located in Dahanzhuang, a village under Tangshan city found drugs used to fatten the birds and antibiotics to keep them healthy in their cramped and dirty rooms where more than 6,100 yellow-breasted buntings, an endangered species, were caged, according to the report.
Traffickers fatten the birds with drugs, smother them and then freeze them before sending the birds to be eaten in restaurants in the country's south, Wang Jianmin, a volunteer from Tianjin, told thepaper.cn on Tuesday.
While traffickers sell each bird for around 20 yuan ($3), the market price in Guangdong for a single yellow-breasted bunting ranges from 25 yuan to 30 yuan, Wang noted.
The yellow-breasted bunting is listed as an endangered animal by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature but has not been placed on any domestic lists of protected species, thepaper.cn reported.
Since some wild birds are not listed as threatened or protected species, one can only receive an administrative punishment for trafficking them, rather than a criminal sentence, Wang added.
Wang Can, a professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, agreed that the incomplete nature of protection lists is an issue and called on the government to update the lists and expand protected areas, according to the thepaper.cn report.
