A joint crackdown on poultry smuggling led to a seizure of 162 kilograms of smuggled chickens and ducks, the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) government announced Wednesday.

The crackdown jointly deployed by the Macao customs, health and civil affairs authorities was held half a month after Macao gradually eased poultry imports from the mainland.

Live poultry had almost disappeared in the market since the end of January as a result of a tightened bird-flu quarantine control. As a net poultry importer, Macao used to import 8,000 to 10,000 live chickens daily from the mainland to feed the local market demand, as compared to the present amount of some 7,000 poultry daily.

The market shortfall has given the motivation of poultry smuggling. The price of a chicken increased from 15 to 22 patacas (some two to three dollars) after being smuggled from south China's Guangdong Province to Macao.

According to the Macao Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau, all of Macao's current live chicken supply has been undertaken by three designated poultry farms in Zhuhai.

For public hygiene concerns, all live chickens not sold in Macao by the evening on the day of import are mandated to be slaughtered so that they can later be sold as frozen meat, said the bureau.

The bureau said that poultry imports through the official channel are up to par of double quarantine standards of China's mainland and Macao. The poultry smuggling would pose a potential threat of epidemic prevalence.

Chickens are an integral part of Macao's Sino-Portuguese culinary heritage, which has also become a major tourist attraction. With a population of 448,000 and an average of 35,000 visitors a day, Macao is a big consumer of poultry products.

(Xinhua News Agency March 17, 2004)