Beijing's secret civet cat farmer loses his crop to Sars cull

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Beijing's secret civet cat farmer loses his crop to Sars cull

By Richard Spencer in Beijing

(Filed: 12/01/2004)

 

 

As Beijing's only civet cat farmer, Deng may be the unluckiest man in

China.

 

His first " crop " is ready to be butchered and sold to restaurants

specialising in " wild food " . Instead, as China rounds up its civets

because

of supposed links to Sars, police have descended on his animals,

quarantining them pending developments in a scare that at the moment has

 

just one confirmed and two suspected cases.

 

 

Chinese inspectors seize frozen civet cats in Guangzhou

Mr Deng kept his farm a secret even before the animal was accused of

carrying the virus, which spread round the world from China last year

and

has emerged again in Guangzhou. Civets are valuable animals, and he was

worried about being burgled.

 

When the cull was announced, because of a study in Hong Kong that found

the

coronavirus believed to cause Sars in civet samples, he went further

underground, operating under the title " Special Vegetable Farm " .

 

Mr Deng's concern over burglary is now replaced by a fear for locals'

reaction to knowledge that civets are in their midst. He thought when he

 

started that there would be a good market for the animal, whose meat is

said

to taste a little like lamb.

 

He allowed the first few litters to grow and multiply - each breeding

female

can have up to three offspring a year - and he now has 298 animals. But

then

Sars came. " I would have made a lot of money, " he said.

 

Civet prices are uncertain, but a load of 1,253 in Guangzhou had been

bought

for 264,000 yuan, which works out at about £15 each. In restaurants,

where

it is served as soup or braised in soy sauce, it sells for £5 a pound.

Like

many farmers, he is sentimental about the animals he was about to turn

into

meat.

 

" I love my civets, " he said. " I am sure they are not responsible for

anything bad. It worries me that I do not know what is going to happen

to

them. "

 

--

Dave Neale

Animals Asia Foundation

 

Find out more about the historic China Bear Rescue by visiting the

Animals Asia Foundation website at http://www.animalsasia.org