Farmhouse restaurants should not become back kitchens for cooking wild game
Among the signature dishes a farmhouse restaurant in Chengdu, Sichuan, uses to attract customers is a special wild game item: egrets. For 80 yuan, a customer can order one slaughtered on the spot and have it braised, stewed in soy sauce, stir-fried, or stewed in a pot. (September 21, Beijing Times)
A small shop breaking the law seems to be merely an isolated case. But if it is viewed in a certain context, everything may take on a shocking meaning. Take this year as an example: on September 17, the Agriculture and Forestry Bureau of Laoshan District in Qingdao carried out joint law enforcement and seized 10 turtle doves (dead bodies); in July, Shaanxi media reported that farmhouse restaurants outside the Niubeiliang Scenic Area in Zhashui County, Shangluo, were secretly selling wild game, with shopkeepers claiming they had wild boar, yellow sheep, and muntjac; on June 9, a farmhouse restaurant in Tianshui, Gansu, illegally purchased 3 already skinned red-bellied golden pheasants with no heads or claws at 12 yuan each... With farmhouse restaurants in such a state of widespread suffering, who exactly are they bringing joy to?
The death of the egret in the farmhouse restaurant warns of at least three things: first, the Chinese people's "wild game complex" and the traditional notion of so-called "medicine and food sharing the same origin" really should turn around in time within the scientific concept of ecological and environmental protection; second, wildlife protection can no longer go unprosecuted and uninvestigated, and there must be proactive "attention" to places such as farmhouse restaurants. According to the Wildlife Protection Law, hunting or catching wild animals not under special state protection requires a hunting permit and must comply with hunting quota management; those hunting with guns must obtain a gun license issued by the county or city public security organ. But how much wild game legally falls from the sky? Third, anti-corruption and integrity promotion must also include places such as farmhouse restaurants within the scope of supervision, to guard against these out-of-the-way leisure and consumption venues becoming the "rear base" for the four malfeasances.
Farmhouse restaurants should not be back kitchens for cooking wild animals. Perhaps even boundless greed should leave a forbidden zone for the vast sky.