As the economy improves, eating rare game has become more and more fashionable in many parts of China including Shanghai. A recent survey shows about 80 to 90 per cent of the 30,000 restaurants in the city have cooked and sold animals which are officially protected by the government. The bulk of restaurants serving up endangered wild animals were found to be those in the mid-range of eateries - not usually those at the top or bottom ends of the market.

The survey was jointly conducted on December by Shanghai Wild Life Protection Administration and local industrial and business watchdogs.

The survey also found that most customers are rich people such as private entrepreneurs, senior company executives, white collar workers and even some government and Party officials. Sometimes people invite them to eat and sometimes they pay themselves.

Those who paid to eat said they did so either because they believed the dishes were good for their health or out of curiosity. Some said they did so simply to flaunt their wealth.

Those who invited people to eat wild animals said they wanted to demonstrate their sincere wish to give their important guests a good dinner, otherwise they would lose face.

Many restaurants claimed they bought the animals from farms. But this was not really the case, the organizers of the survey said.

Snakes, frogs and birds are the most common wild game cooked in local restaurants. It is estimated that each year people in Shanghai eat up to 1,000 tons of snakes of more than 10 different kinds, according to a recent report from Xinmin Evening News.

"But it is very difficult to hatch snake's eggs in captivity," said Huang Zhengyi, a professor of biology at Fudan University.

Most of the cooked snakes and frogs were captured in the wild, especially in provinces in East China, before being sold in Shanghai, Huang said.

Du Dechang, director of Shanghai Wildlife Protection Administration said of all the 53 kinds of rare animals that had been found on the restaurant tables in Shanghai, only seven - such as the peafowl, pheasant and deer - were raised on farms and the other 46 kinds were all wild species living in the wild.

Unlike people in South China's Guangdong Province, Shanghainese previously did not eat snakes or pangolins. Although some people would hunt wild birds and some would eat them, but it was never an issue.

Since the 1980s, however, Cantonese cuisine has been in vogue. And the practice of eating wild and rare animals - commonly used in Cantonese restaurants - spread to Shanghai as well as in many parts of the country.

Local wide life endangered

Many people take Shanghai as a very modern city, not knowing that more than 500 kinds of wild animals roam within the city limits.

As the local economy has improved, local poachers and restaurateurs have been quick to jump on the bandwagon.

It is even possible to buy Yangtze crocodiles and Chinese sturgeons, both endangered species under first-grade State protection, in restaurants in secret.

Bird resources are especially rich in Shanghai. In fact, Shanghai, at the middle of the East Asian coastline, is an important stopover for migrating birds between Northeast Asia and Australia.

There are large habitats on Chongming Island and Nanhui County. Each year, more than 2 million migrant birds arrive in Shanghai, and about 15 per cent of them get eaten, Du said.

Every year, the birds arrive on Chongming Island, residing mostly on its eastern side in a water-logged area of 200 square kilometres, about one sixth of the island land mass.

Of the 108 known species, 12 are classified as State first grade and second grade endangered species. And most of the rest are on the joint protection list signed by China, Japan and Australia.

Despite the fact that a nature reserve was set up in Chongming's Dongtan at the end of 1998, Dongtan has an increasing number of poachers.

Local law enforcement authorities launched several offensives against poaching, marketing and trafficking of game every year, and punished those offenders according to relevant laws and regulations.

In late 1999, the police, industrial and commercial departments and the wildlife protection administration launched a joint large-scale strike against the poachers in Dongtan. But as the police left, the poachers came back.

It is obvious Dongtan is too big an area and the regular police force is too small to be a serious deterrent to determined poachers, Du complained.

In Chongming, poachers use traps, guns and poison to secure birds while in Nanhui, poachers use large nets.

Each year between October to March, cars with full loads of captured birds roar their way out of Nanhui County. "At its peak, every day a car full of birds leaves Nanhui," said Du.

A tough question

In some forest-covered provinces, there is a special group of forest police whose main task is to prevent illegal poaching and taking of lumber and catch the lawbreakers. And there were repeated reports about the fights between law enforcers and breakers in recent years.

So far, Shanghai has no distinct police department to curb poachers and traffickers of wild life. The Shanghai police are responsible specially for preventing the trafficking of endangered animals such as giant pandas and tigers.

The capture and sale of "less important" rare animals have to be curbed by various departments such as the industrial and commercial bureaux, taxation bureaux and the agriculture and forestry bureaux.

"It is a big headache for us," said Du, referring to the work of protecting rare animals and preventing them from being eaten.

The Wild Life Protection Administration, of the Shanghai Agriculture and Forestry Bureau, has only seven staff including Du.

Besides the protection of local wildlife, the administration is also partly responsible for the quarantine and supervision of imports and exports of wild life in most provinces in East China. "Everyday we are very busy," said Du.

Many poachers and traffickers have established long-term supply relationships with restaurants. On the other hand, the city has 760 large agricultural products markets, numerous small markets and 50 flower and bird markets in Shanghai. Wild birds and animals such as monkeys can be found on sale in these locations, which have become virtually open transaction places for wildlife.

"The only way out is tougher punishment for those caught trading in wild animals and greater efforts in environmental and wildlife protection publicity and education among the people," said Huang.