Outrage is building among Chinese netizens over reports that government officials served State-protected pangolins to guests for dinner, with many calling for heavy punishments for those involved and for better protection of the endangered animal.
China's Communist Youth League, the State Forestry Administration (SFA), animal welfare NGOs, including the Endangered Species Fund of China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, and many netizens have urged the government to up protection measures for the scaly anteaters on Tuesday, after a Sina Weibo post went viral on Monday, claiming that "Guangxi government officials invited people to eat pangolins."
The original post by "Ah_cal" from July 2015 said that two government officials from the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region surnamed Li and Huang invited him to dine on the highly endangered species at their office while he was conducting a business survey in the region in 2015. "Ah_cal" was identified as the son of a wealthy businessman in Hong Kong by the Singapore-based Lianhe Zaobao on Tuesday.
The post was subsequently deleted on Monday after it came to the sudden attention of netizens.
The Endangered Species Fund has urged the forestry department to re-categorize the pangolin from a second to a first-class State-protected animal and stop issuing permits for utilization of pangolins and artificial reproduction of the animal, said an e-mail sent by Hu Chunmei, secretary of the fund, to the Global Times.
The pangolin is the world's most trafficked animal, and in a major international conference in Johannesburg in October 2016, it was awarded the highest level of protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which prohibits international trade in any of the eight pangolin species. It is estimated more than 1 million pangolins have been poached and killed in the last decade, according to wildlife NGO Wild Aid. Indonesia opposed the re-listing, and five countries, including China, abstained, said the Guardian.
In China, those who catch, kill, buy or sell endangered wild animals on the State's protection list could face a jail term of more than 10 years plus fines.
Many netizens have joined in the calls for an investigation into the allegations and urged heavy punishment for those involved if the allegations turn out to be true.
A Guangxi Department of Forestry employee told news site thepaper.cn on Monday that the department has received a notice from the SFA to investigate the allegations.
