Chinese man to Obama: Use my flycatcher

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-06-23 19:44

HANGZHOU: A Chinese inventor of ultrasonic flycatchers said here Tuesday that he has mailed his patent invention to an international organization, which he hopes will pass it on to US President Barack Obama.

"It is not hygienic for President Obama to swat a fly with his hand. The machine can catch the insect alive automatically," said Hu Xilin, a famed private businessman, who is known as "Lord of the Flycatchers" in China.

The man, in his 50s, said the People for the Ethnic Treatment of Animals (Peta) has shown an interest in accepting his fly catching devices and sending the machine to the US President.

The organization said on its blog that "it had sent the president a "handy-dandy" bug catcher so future intruders can be captured and released outside," after Obama killed a fly with his hand during a TV interview with the Canadian National Broadcasting Corporation.

Hu's invention, which was patented by the China State Intellectual Property Office in 2007, is motor driven, and can trap flies with organic bait and an ultraviolet lamp. It is the same size as a desktop printer.

The businessman in Yuyao City, in east China's Zhejiang Province, has accumulated 10 million dried fly specimens, trapped by the machine.

He has sent hundreds of the machines for free to help catch flies in disease-plagued regions in Japan, Congo and Vietnam.