Raids directed at wild frog vendors
- Source: Global Times
- [08:37 August 24 2010]
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By Zhang Cao
Authorities are making it harder for vendors to sell wild frogs to customers wanting to buy home the four-legged amphibians to cook for dinner, with more random raids being launched at wet markets in a bid to crack down on the illegal sales.
As local residents continue to whet their appetites over a plate of stir-fried wild frog, officials from the Wild Animals Protection Office, the government body in charge of wild frog protection in the city, said that they plan to start carrying out early morning checks to prevent vendors from continuing to sell wild frogs.
Bullfrogs have become something of a household delicacy among local residents since the early 1990s, when China began importing and soon raising the species of frog as another form of meat, according to Yan Jingjing, director of the Wild Animals Protection Office.
"Bullfrogs are now widely bred in China for the purpose of eating, so selling these kinds of frogs doesn't break any law," she told the Global Times Monday. "But the purchase of sale of wild frog is illegal."
Yet vendors are nonetheless giving into the growing market for wild frog, selling them under the table to whoever is willing to pay, said Yan.
At the Aquatic Products Wholesale Market, one of the largest wet markets in the city, vendors were working hard to get their share of frog sold off Monday morning.
One vendor told the Global Times that she only sells wild frog to customers between 4 am and 5 am every morning.
"It's risky to sell them during the day because they're forbidden from being sold," a vendor, who asked not to be named, told the Global Times Monday. "Officials always come during the day to check up on us."
The vendor added that many of her customers buy in bulk, and transport them to downtown areas for resale to other customers.
Over by the Dagu Road Food Market in Jing'an district Monday, a vendor carried both bullfrog and wild frog - the latter behind the counter.
"I'll sell bullfrog for 12 yuan ($1.76) per half-kilogram, but 6 yuan more per half-kilogram will get you wild frog," he told the Global Times Monday.
