The sparrow, once perceived as a threat to crops and exterminated
throughout China, is currently being listed under Hunan's
provincial level protection scheme for wild life.
"Anyone illegally hunting or trading sparrows will be severely
penalized," said Zhang Qixiang, an official from the forestry
department in Hunan
Province.
Based on a wildlife protection list promulgated in 1988, the
Catalogue of Wildlife under Hunan Province Key Protection' was
revised and publicized by the provincial government this year. It
is the first time the sparrow (Tree Sparrow) has been
included on the list.
In
August 2000, the State Forestry Administration bureau listed the
sparrow for the first time as beneficial terrestrial wild life
offering economic and scientific value, although they were not
under state key protection.
At
the end of the 1950s, a national campaign was launched to
exterminate sparrows because their numbers were so large that
people were forced to compete with them in scrambling for scarce
food resources. Various kinds of tools were adopted to kill the
birds including shotguns, nets and sieves. The campaign lasted for
quite some time until zoologists finally suggested stopping the
practice.
Experts pointed out that although sparrows can be harmful to crops,
they also play an important role in spreading pollen as their
central food sources are pests and berries. The number of sparrows
has dropped dramatically in recent years, negatively influencing
the ecological balance.
Relevant surveys show that the main cause of death to sparrows is
the large amount of pesticides indiscriminately used by farmers,
including some forbidden by the state. In addition, a large number
of sparrows have been caught and killed since eating fried sparrows
became popular throughout the country in the 1990s. This is another
major cause for the decreasing number of birds.
Environmental workers believe that listing sparrows as wild life
under provincial key protection will play a positive role in
curbing the drastic decrease in bird numbers. Dr. Zhang Chen from
the World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) Yangtze River program says that it
is not permitted for wildlife to be caught or killed, and that
placing greater numbers of animals on the protection list is
becoming an increasingly popular trend.
The number of wildlife species on the list promulgated by Hunan
Province has increased significantly since 1988, and the number of
bird species alone has risen from 56 to 360.
(China.org.cn translated by Zhang Tingting, December 20, 2002)