China: Wild Animal Hunt on Hold

By REUTERS | The New York Times
12 August 2006

China indefinitely postponed an auction that would have allowed foreign hunting organizations to bid for licenses to hunt wild animals of 14 different species after a public backlash, the state news media reported. The government-sanctioned auction was to have been held tomorrow. The permits were based on types and numbers of the animals, from $200 for a wolf to as much as $40,000 for a wild yak. The whole idea had infuriated China’s Internet users, The official New China News Agency reported. “The response from the public is beyond our expectation,” it quoted Wang Wei, an official of the State Forestry Association, the auction’s organizer, as saying.