The Fishery Bureau under the Ministry of Agriculture issued an urgent notice on December 25, demanding that fishery administrative departments nationwide carry out a thorough inspection of red piranhas in markets, parks, aquaria and other places; and confiscate and destroy them once they are found; putting them into natural water regions is strictly forbidden.
Recently, illegal introducing, breeding or selling of red piranhas have been discovered in succession within Chinese territory, which has drawn high attention from all walks of life. To tighten supervision and control on foreign aquatic species, prevent damage to the ecological environment of Chinese waters and guarantee the security of domestic species, the Fishery Bureau issued Urgent Notice on Investigating and Treating Red Piranhas, requiring all fishery administrations to intensify law-enforcement and investigation into illegal importing, breeding or dealing in red piranhas and promptly report related information to higher authorities.
The Fishery Bureau is now getting in touch with the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation and the General Customs Administration, discussing matters on adoption of measures for the control of trade in red piranhas. The whole country is launching activities to investigate and deal with red piranhas, while Beijing, Guangxi, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Chongqing and some other places have already taken effective cleaning-up measures to prevent red piranhas from swarming into the natural waters of China.
(People’s Daily December 26, 2002)
