How much do you know about the law on endangered wildlife?
Xining Customs have broken up a major smuggling case involving products of endangered species, seizing ivory, a tiger skin, pangolin scales, and lion bone and teeth, much of it taken from young animals. Article 341 of the Criminal Law punishes not only the illegal hunting or killing of rare and endangered wildlife but also the illegal purchase, transport or sale of such animals and their products, by up to five years' imprisonment and more. Buying animals in order to release them is also unlawful, and eating them carries a risk of disease.
On 12 October 2019 the CCTV News account on Weibo carried a report headed "Xining breaks up a major smuggling case involving endangered animals: much of it taken from young animals". Xining Customs had recently succeeded in breaking up a major case of smuggling products of endangered species, seizing a quantity of products from rare animals, including ivory, tiger skin, pangolin scales, lion bone and lion teeth. According to the customs investigators, much of what was seized came from young animals. "No buying, no killing", the report added, urging readers to share it. (CCTV reporter Sun Shuwen.) The post carried several photographs, each of them painful to look at: pieces of ivory large and small and of every shape; pile upon pile of pangolin scales beyond counting; lion teeth and bone of every kind; and even a single large, intact tiger skin. It is hard to imagine how many rare and endangered animals were killed to produce them.
Laws and policies for the protection of endangered animals have been issued over the years, yet some people will still stop at nothing for profit. The saying holds: no buying, no harm.
Under Article 341 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, on the offence of illegally hunting, killing, buying, transporting or selling rare or endangered wildlife, a person who illegally hunts or kills rare or endangered wildlife under special state protection, or illegally buys, transports or sells such wildlife or its products, is liable to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years or criminal detention, and to a fine; where the circumstances are serious, to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years and not more than ten years, and to a fine; and where the circumstances are especially serious, to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than ten years, and to a fine or confiscation of property. A person who, in breach of hunting regulations, hunts in a closed season or a closed area, or with prohibited tools or methods, damaging wildlife resources, where the circumstances are serious, is liable to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or public surveillance, or to a fine.
It should not be thought, then, that only illegal hunting or killing of rare and endangered wildlife under special state protection is criminal. Illegally buying, transporting or selling such wildlife or its products is punished as the same offence. The offence requires the following elements: an act of illegal hunting or killing; a breach of the relevant legal provisions; an object that is rare or endangered wildlife; and intent on the part of the actor. Absent any one of these, the offence will not ordinarily be made out, so a person who genuinely mistakes a protected animal for another and kills or catches it through lack of the necessary knowledge will not ordinarily be convicted of it.
Some people buy wild animals in order to release them. The motive is good, but the conduct is unlawful. The Law on the Protection of Wildlife prohibits the sale and purchase of wildlife under special state protection and its products, and "purchase" here includes buying for profit or for one's own use. Even where the purpose is to protect the animal, the purchase is a particular form of buying protected wildlife and equally breaches the prohibition. Joining the ranks of buyers in order to protect wildlife also encourages poachers to some degree and furthers their unlawful and criminal conduct. The practice is therefore not to be commended.
The proper course, where the unlawful sale, transport or carrying of protected wildlife is discovered, is to report it promptly to the competent administrative department and leave the matter to that department. Buying the animal on one's own initiative in order to release it, however good the intention, will end in an administrative penalty for breach of the Law on the Protection of Wildlife.
A final warning: illegally buying endangered wild animals to eat is not only unlawful but carries a risk of infection. Wild animals live in the wild over long periods and viruses often lie dormant in them; given the right conditions those viruses may pass into the human population. Ebola, monkeypox, HIV and avian influenza, all familiar, have been shown to be diseases transmitted from wild animals to humans.
No buying, no harm. May the endangered wildlife of the world come to a safe end.