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Plucking allegation 'inaccurate'

By Wang Qian (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-10 07:47

A foreign report claiming Chinese firms pluck live birds to get their down is "inaccurate", a trade association said yesterday.

Swedish TV4's Cold Facts reported that 50 to 80 percent of the down produced in China comes from live birds, and that 90 percent of the Chinese firms investigated admitted plucking birds while they were still alive.

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The China Feather & Down Industrial Association told a press conference the report "distorted the facts".

Just 0.1 to 0.3 percent of the down is obtained from live birds (mostly ducks), which is legal in China but not in some other countries, it said.

"Almost all the down taken from live birds is exported to Japan to make expensive bedding and clothing," Yao Xiaoman, vice-chairwoman and secretary-general of the association, said.

The way the TV station conducted its interview was "improper", she said.

In the program, a reporter, posing as a foreign buyer, "seduced" producers into admitting they plucked live birds.

The TV station did not reply to an e-mail from China Daily yesterday, but a journalist from the station said at the press conference that the "anonymous interviews were a little improper".

The report has stirred up anti-Chinese sentiment in some European countries, Yao said.

The Zhejiang Multi Glory Group, a feather products manufacturer, said furniture giant IKEA canceled some of its orders shortly after the broadcast.

The company was named on the TV show, along with 15 other Chinese firms, as plucking live birds.

Thirteen of the 16 firms denied engaging in such a practice, Yao said.

The association sent a letter to Swedish TV4 on Friday, calling for an immediate halt to the program and inviting the TV station to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the issue.

Yao said she planned to invite Swedish animal protection organizations to introduce European laws on animal protection in the near future.

Wilford Lieber, president of the International Down and Feather Laboratory & Institution (IDFL) said live plucking was probably not popular in China because Chinese people eat ducks.

Therefore, "down is mostly obtained after the ducks are killed", he said.

The IDFL has estimated that over 99 percent of the world's down is a by-product of the food industry.

China supplies about 80 percent of the world's down and feathers, which was valued at $1.88 billion last year.