The sparrow, once perceived as a threat to crops and exterminated throughout China, is currently being listed under Hunan's provincial level protection scheme for wild life.

"Anyone illegally hunting or trading sparrows will be severely penalized," said Zhang Qixiang, an official from the forestry department in Hunan Province.

Based on a wildlife protection list promulgated in 1988, the Catalogue of Wildlife under Hunan Province Key Protection' was revised and publicized by the provincial government this year. It is the first time the sparrow (Tree Sparrow) has been included on the list.

In August 2000, the State Forestry Administration bureau listed the sparrow for the first time as beneficial terrestrial wild life offering economic and scientific value, although they were not under state key protection.

At the end of the 1950s, a national campaign was launched to exterminate sparrows because their numbers were so large that people were forced to compete with them in scrambling for scarce food resources. Various kinds of tools were adopted to kill the birds including shotguns, nets and sieves. The campaign lasted for quite some time until zoologists finally suggested stopping the practice.

Experts pointed out that although sparrows can be harmful to crops, they also play an important role in spreading pollen as their central food sources are pests and berries. The number of sparrows has dropped dramatically in recent years, negatively influencing the ecological balance.

Relevant surveys show that the main cause of death to sparrows is the large amount of pesticides indiscriminately used by farmers, including some forbidden by the state. In addition, a large number of sparrows have been caught and killed since eating fried sparrows became popular throughout the country in the 1990s. This is another major cause for the decreasing number of birds.

Environmental workers believe that listing sparrows as wild life under provincial key protection will play a positive role in curbing the drastic decrease in bird numbers. Dr. Zhang Chen from the World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) Yangtze River program says that it is not permitted for wildlife to be caught or killed, and that placing greater numbers of animals on the protection list is becoming an increasingly popular trend.

The number of wildlife species on the list promulgated by Hunan Province has increased significantly since 1988, and the number of bird species alone has risen from 56 to 360.

(China.org.cn translated by Zhang Tingting, December 20, 2002)