Shanghai denies cover-up as pig tally tops 10,000
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, March 20, 2013
Stopped fishing
Zhejiang Province's Jiaxing City, located in the upstream of the Huangpu River, is believed to be the source as some ear tags showed the dead pigs were raised there.
Local fishermen in Jiaxing had stopped fishing and were instead helping in digging out the pig bodies from the river, Xiaoxiang Morning Herald reported yesterday.
The fishermen took up the job of retrieving the pig carcasses, earning an extra income of up to 150 yuan (US$24) daily.
They also told the paper that the water there was too polluted to fish.
The newspaper compared the rivers in Jiaxing to a "black mirror" of pollutants including garbage, pig manure and dead pig bodies, hurting the livelihood of the fishermen.
Fengnan Village had about 246 fishermen. But now only 60 of them went out fishing while the rest joined in hunting for dead pigs.
"How can fish survive in such kind of water?" asked Xu Yumei, a local fisherman in her 50s.
Xu said the fishermen had complained about water pollution to local authorities many times but it had never been solved, the paper reported.
"Even if we are able to find some fish, the fish smell so bad that they couldn't be sold," said Chen Qiaozhen, another fisherman.
The fishermen then turned to clear up garbage and dead pigs in the river to earn money.
The government also offered them an incentive - about 3,200 yuan annually to keep the river clean per kilometer.
The pay was higher than what they earned in fishing.
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