A 55-year-old bird seller in east China's Jiangsu Province has nurtured a new hobby: protecting, taming and curing sick birds.

 

Jin Baocheng, the last known descendant of the well-known Sparrow Hunting King Family in the provincial capital of Nanjing, said he is now opposed to rampant bird hunting and will not allow his descendents to hunt these environment protectors.

 

In Nanjing where the Japanese white eye bird considered the most popular of the top four pet birds in the country are commonly seen, some people have engaged in large-scale bird catching for commercial sales. Their activities saddened Jin who would try to stop hunters on the mountains every time he saw them.

 

Jin's home in Baixia District, has become a haven for scores of Japanese white eyes, babblers and other birds.

 

Jin's familiarity of birds even allows him to treat the sick and injured without medicine, Nanjing-based Jinling Evening News reported.

 

Even a two-year-old Japanese white eye, once confined to a tiny cage, was apparently cured of depression and reluctance to eat, after it was taken into Jin's care. After a day's observation, Jin concluded the bird was in a fragile and spiritless state due being constantly cold. Within four days though, the bird was miraculously cured.

 

Jin's Sparrow Hunting King Family was best known in the late 1950s, when the country launched a nationwide sanitation sheme to "eradicate four evils" including rats, mosquitoes, lice and sparrows.

 

Jin's third uncle, named Jin Xiaosan, was crowned the national champion and hailed as the "Sparrow Hunting King" by the then Nanjing mayor, when he once netted 396 sparrows in one afternoon.

 

Jin's third uncle taught him everything he knew about bird-catching, and handed down all his equipment.

 

Jin later became well-known in Nanjing, and in 1966 when Jin was 12, caught 1,000 orioles within half a month, and sold them to the local garden for 98 yuan (US$13), a handsome sum then.

 

In the 1970s, Jin's occupation was listed as "bird hunter" in his permanent residence booklet.

 

(China Daily April 4, 2007)