China's wintering waterbird population surges amid crackdown on illegal hunting

China's wintering waterbird population has soared to over 6.32 million this year, marking an increase of nearly 159 percent from 2016 levels. This significant rise is credited to six years of multi-agency crackdowns, culminating in a 17-department, three-year blitz against illegal bird hunting and trafficking, an official announced Thursday.

Wang Weisheng, director of the flora and fauna department at the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, revealed that this record count is the highest since nationwide monitoring began. He emphasized the effectiveness of multi-agency enforcement measures rolled out since the blitz started last year.

Public security agencies have conducted cross-regional operations in Inner Mongolia, Ningxia Hui autonomous regions, and the provinces of Shaanxi, Anhui, Hubei, and Guangdong. These efforts targeted poaching and trafficking networks across all levels of the supply chain, resulting in 577 criminal investigations, Wang disclosed.

Market regulators have intensified both online surveillance and on-site inspections, addressing 3,435 suspected illegal transaction alerts since early 2025. They have also pushed e-commerce platforms to tighten compliance and penalized vendors facilitating wildlife crime.

Prosecutors have strengthened joint efforts with forestry and grassland administrations through public-interest litigation, filing 1,106 criminal indictments and bringing 1,653 public-interest lawsuits.

These coordinated campaigns have yielded clear results, with many endangered bird species rebounding and the country's wintering waterbird population increasing significantly. For instance, the Baer's pochard population has more than doubled to 2,555 birds since 2012, according to a winter survey completed last year. The blue-crowned laughingthrush population has risen from 550 in 2024 to approximately 660.