Chinese Police Officers Suspended For Eating Gigantic Salamander

 

China serves giant salamaders on a plate, even though its against the law. A group of police officers from China, got in trouble with the law, after eating a giant endangered salamander.

Officials from Shenzhen, a city from the south of China, decided to suspend 14 police officers and start investigating one of the police chiefs on Tuesday, after they were suspected to have been indulging on a giant salamander, belonging to an endangered species, stated media reports.

It appears that the police officers were eating the endangered animal, at a seafood local restaurant, reported the local media, Shenzhen Daily. The gigantic salamander, is considered the worlds largest amphibian, and its length can reach  180 cm.

China leading officials have demanded members of the Communist Party to abstain from expensive feasts and excursions, as the state was working on tightening government excess. The huge social differences between the poor and the rich, as well as corruption, is one of the population’s main discontent regarding the ruling party members.

A few police officers recurred to violence and attacked a group of reporters who were trying to get some pictures of the banquet and they took away their cell phones and cameras, reported Southern Metropolis Daily, an appreciated newspaper from South of China. The paper added, that the employees of the restaurant, refused to provide them the images from the surveillance cameras.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the number of the gigantic amphibian which lives in southern and central China, has disastrously declined over the past thirty years, main reason being the human exploitation for consumption. There are some beliefs in China, which say that the amphibian has anti aging properties.

This wouldn’t be the only animal considered to have useful benefits. Traditional Chinese beliefs are surrounded around animal parts, like bear  bile or tiger bone, which are thought to be medicinal treatments. Environmentalists have denounced an expanding market with products made out of endangered species.

Investigations, seem to have confirmed that the restaurant serving the endangered salamander didn’t have a license and  spokesperson of the place, allegedly declared that the salamander they served, had been raised in captivity.

The IUCN said, that indeed in China there exists some commercial farming of gigantic salamanders, but most of them used for consumption are considered to have been poached from the wild.
Image Source: Glogster