The South China city of Guangzhou has begun special investigation into wildlife trade to ensure restaurants are not buying State-protected animals to serve them as delicacies.

"The campaign, which began on Wednesday, is focusing on wildlife trade and restaurants in every corner of the city," says Wang Fan, an official of the Guangzhou Food Safety Office. "Not only disease carriers such as field mice and gem-face civets, but also State-protected wild animals like pangolins, popular as delicacies among some people, are the targets of the investigation."

"The probe is aimed at finding out whether newspaper reports on field mice are being supplied from the neighboring province of Hunan and served by restaurants in Guangzhou. The city government's move is also aimed at minimizing the risk just in case the reports are true," he says.

Information Times, a local newspaper, reported last Saturday that truckloads of field mice from Hunan were seen heading toward a market in the suburban district of Baiyun late at night.

About 2 billion field mice have invaded 22 counties around Dongting Lake in Hunan Province after floods devastated the area earlier this month. About 2.3 million of the pests have been killed.

"Members of the campaign's joint force have launched surprise inspection raids on markets and restaurants in the past couple of days. But they have not found a single field mouse," Wang says.

Qi Genxian, a professor with Guangdong Provincial Insect Research Institute, rubbishes the newspaper report, saying: "On one hand, field mice from Hunan are generally a bag of bones and can be disease carriers. I don't think people are willing to take the risk of eating them. On the other, it is very difficult to catch live field mice in great numbers. How can you have truckloads of live mice from Hunan?"

Field mice were considered a delicacy in Guangdong Province, of which Guangzhou is the capital. But their sale and consumption was banned during the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak in 2003. The city government has not lifted the ban since. In fact, trade in and consumption of all wild animals are banned in the province.

But what if dead mice were being supplied from Hunan? That is impossible. How can you have truckloads of dead rats, says a Hunan official. People around the Dongting Lake will be relieved to know that.

It, however, is true that some people in Hunan are buying rat poison from the black market because they can kill the pests instantly unlike government-approved brands that take some time to do so. The approved brands use ingredients that don't harm the animals that eat the dead rats or the soil and water around.

To prevent people from buying the highly toxic brands, local and provincial health and disease prevention and control authorities have strengthened management and control of rat poison and pesticide, says Chen Xiaochun, deputy director of the provincial health department.

"Rat poison that kills rats instantly is likely to be very, very toxic and is banned. It pollutes the environment, especially the soil and water around. Such a poison poses a great threat to the animals higher up in the food chain," says Li Bo, a specialist in rodents with the Institute of Sub-tropical Agriculture, affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The joint efforts of the government and farmers have reduced the number of rats during the past months, say local officials. The Ministry of Agriculture and the Hunan provincial government have together granted 900,000 yuan to eradicate the rats.

Experts, however, warn that the number of rats can multiply dramatically again in the next two years because it normally takes about three years for their breeding cycle to complete.

Li says it usually takes 10 years for a colony of rats to reach its peak, which can last for three to five years. The rat colony around Dongting Lake reached its peak last year, and it will take another two years for its number to fall, China News Service quoted Li says.

(China Daily 07/20/2007 page12)