Forestry police in Southwest China's Yunnan Province recently burned the seized carcasses of protected species and confiscated products illegally made from animals, chinanews.com quoted the local forestry bureau as saying.
The carcasses of around 20 types of animals were incinerated, including two slow lorises - a first-class nationally protected species - and several second-class protected animals including seven rhesus macaques and two silver pheasants.
All the carcasses were confiscated by the forestry police bureau of Jinghong during a crackdown between May 2016 to March 2017, news portal chinanews.com reported Saturday.
Due to difficulties police faced in storing the confiscated contraband items, the authorities decided to burn them with diesel and tires.
The forestry police bureau of Jinghong has busted 182 administrative cases, 55 criminal cases and 301 suspects since its crackdown on the illegal killing and trading of protected animals began.
"This action has shown our resolute stance on cracking down on crimes related to endangered wild animals and our strong willingness to protect the forest environment," Yang Shulin, chief of the Jinghong forestry police bureau was quoted as saying by chinanews.com.
"Residents should be aware of the ban on hunting wild animals and should not run illegal animal product businesses," Jin Zhong, deputy chief of the bureau, was quoted as saying.
Chinese envoy to the UN Liu Jieyi called on the international community at a General Assemby meeting in March to step up efforts to combat the illegal trade in wildlife through law enforcement, saying greater action against links in the illegal chain including production, marketing and trafficking is required, the Xinhua News Agency reported on March 4.
