Wildlife protection mandatory, not optional

ON THURSDAY, the provincial disciplinary and supervision commission of Hubei province, announced that it had punished 15 local officials for constructing a bridge that caused the deaths of 36 Chinese sturgeons, which are a critically endangered species. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:

In September 2018, when a company was constructing the local Miyue Bridge in Jingzhou, Hubei province, a nearby Chinese sturgeon breeding base found that their Chinese sturgeons suffered and were jumping out of the water.

An investigation concluded that it was the noise of the construction that disturbed the fish. However, the local government upon receiving the investigation report simply passed the buck from one department to another. The construction did not stop until one month later, but the tragedy had already happened because 36 Chinese sturgeons, whose number is lower than 1,000 nationwide, died.