After changing the clause "not to eat wild animals" to "not to indiscriminately eat wild animals," the proposed regulation was submitted to the South China' Guangdong provincial legislative for examination and approval on Tuesday.

The original version of the draft, the provincial patriotic public health campaign work regulation, has no clause on eating wild animals. But after the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) crisis happened in this year, the standing committee of the provincial People's Congress added the clauses on the prohibition of the consumption of wild animals and stricter management of pets.

The legislation to ban eating wild animals caused a hot debate in Guangdong Province where the practice is steeped in centuries of tradition. The proposition intended to "cut the channel of transmission of epidemic diseases through wild animals", but many people said the clause was unclear, not feasible and might undermine the animal breeding industry.

The local legislative held a public hearing and an advisory seminar in July, which agreed that the regulation should include the clause of prohibition of eating wild animals but diverged on the intent and feasibility of the regulation.

The definition of "wild animal" is the key during the debate.

"The home raised animals and wildly grown animals are totally different," said Lu Jiahai, an expert of the provincial expert team against SARS.

His opinion has been received by some experts and local citizens, who thought the original draft was too absolute to be feasible and also not in accordance with some current Chinese laws, which encourage people to breed wild animals.

After the further discussion, the commission of legislative affairs of the provincial people's congress amended the draft, changing the clause from "not to eat wild animals" to "not to indiscriminately eat wild animals".

"The relevant law has made some prescriptions on ban of eating wild animals. The emphasis of the regulation is to encourage people to adopt better habits, so the concrete scopes and kinds of animals which can be eaten or not will not be included in this regulation," said Zhu Shifan, a member of the commission.

The proposed regulation was scheduled to be put the question on Friday afternoon, according to the information released by the provincial people's congress.

(Xinhua News Agency July 23, 2003)