A number of pig carcasses were recently dragged out of the Huangpu River in Shanghai, bringing back memories of a similar case that caused residents to fear for the city's water safety last year.
Last week, the Shanghai government announced it was collaborating with the Zhejiang provincial government to tighten regulation of small and medium waterways upstream of the Huangpu River to ensure water quality. The new pig carcasses were quickly disposed of by city management authorities, according to state media.
Last year, some 10,000 dead pigs were fished out of the water after they were dumped by farmers in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, where more than 100,000 households raise pigs. The city sells about 4.5 million pigs every year. The Jiaxing animal husbandry department said the normal fatality rate of pigs is about 3 percent, or 135,000 dead pigs every year.
Jiaxing officials later admitted that a significant number of pigs were raised in poor conditions. A crude breeding environment, too small enclosures and extreme weather conditions killed around 70,000 of the animals at the beginning of 2013.
Treatment facilities in Jiaxing were unable to handle the huge number of dead pigs and some pig farmers were not properly informed over what they should do, leading them to dump carcasses straight into the rivers and fields.
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