Tuesday December 19 10:49 AM ET
Police Intercept 1,400 Slain Wild Animals
[Animal parts, including those of many endangered species, are used as
ingredients in traditional medicine. Many Chinese also consider wild animal
meat a delicacy more nutritious than the flesh of domesticated pigs, chickens
and cattle. ]
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police have intercepted a shipment of 1,400
illegally slain wild animals, including boars, deer and three tons of hares
and pheasants, state media said Tuesday.

Many of the dead animals, discovered in five containers on Monday in the
northwestern province of Shaanxi, were stuffed into boxes marked ``apples''
and ``veterinary medicine'' and were apparently bound for dinner plates and
medicine jars in northeastern China.

Authorities were questioning five suspects in the case, the biggest of its
kind in a decade in the province, the China Daily newspaper said.

``The possibility that there is an organized gang that traffics in wild
animals is very real,'' it quoted Zhou Lingguo, director of the Provincial
Wild Animal Protection Office, as saying.

None of the animals were listed as nationally protected species, it quoted
Zhou as saying.

Animal parts, including those of many endangered species, are used as
ingredients in traditional medicine. Many Chinese also consider wild animal
meat a delicacy more nutritious than the flesh of domesticated pigs, chickens
and cattle.