Bamboo rat breeders await final decision on industry

Public feedback on the exclusion of many nonconventional species from the draft catalog is being sought until May 8.

Many breeders are concerned it could spell the end of their operations. With details of compensation yet to be worked out, many are walking a fine line as they try to maintain some livestock without spending too much money.

Zhang Haiyou, who breeds bamboo rats in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region－a stronghold of rodent and snake breeding in Southwest China－said he has slashed feed by half over the past few months to save money while keeping 350 rats, and has separated female rats to prevent procreation.

"The compensation policies are murky, and I dare not let the pack grow," Zhang said.

It is a dilemma faced by tens of thousands of rat breeders in Guangxi.

Nine years ago Zhang left his home province of Heilongjiang－an old industrial base in Northeast China that has become a rust belt region－in search of business opportunities in Guangxi.

Zhang began breeding bamboo rats in 2015, opting for the species because a baby rat eats about 3 yuan ($0.42) worth of food a month but grows quickly and can fetch 500 yuan at the market in six months.

Now he's hoping to avoid bankruptcy.

"The priority for me at present is to keep them alive, and wait and see," he said.

The anxiety is shared by bigger breeders like Zheng Yanqing, whose rat cooperative in Shangrao, Jiangxi province, is scrambling to keep more than 3,000 rodents from starving.

Zheng said he will go bankrupt without compensation.

"I invested more than 1 million yuan in the cooperative, with a lot of money being bank loans," he said.

With details of the compensation yet to be ironed out, Zheng said he had no choice but to keep raising the rats, even if it meant spending 20,000 yuan a month on a pack whose consumption was likely to be outlawed soon.

"If I slaughter them on my own accord, I fear I won't get any repayment," he said.

Bamboo rats have up to four litters a year, and the pups can grow from 10 grams to 2 kilograms in six months, breeders say.

That has made them an ideal species to breed in rural mountain areas in South China, where the farming of pigs, cows and other large animals have proved difficult due to a lack of water and the high initial investment required.

Liu Kejun, a senior livestock engineer at Guangxi's Animal Husbandry Research Institute, estimates there are about 36 million rats in captivity in Guangxi. The industry, with annual output worth 2.8 billion yuan, employs 182,000 people－one-fifth of them farmers who recently escaped poverty.

"After the NPC Standing Committee decided to impose the wildlife ban, I was inundated by phone calls asking me what they should do," he said.

The sheer number of animals being raised is also a headache for breeders－irrespective of compensation－especially for some potentially aggressive species like snakes, with local authorities banning their unsupervised release into the wild.

The National Forestry and Grassland Administration said in the April 8 circular that local authorities should take in such animals and release them in their natural habitats in line with the carrying capacity of the ecology.

Before that happens, the circular said, authorities should run tests on animal adaptability and determine how the release could affect the local ecology.

For animals bred in huge numbers, provincial authorities could make arrangements for them to be released in other provinces.

The authorities should accelerate administrative approval for using such animals in medicine or for ornamental purposes to reduce stocks, the circular said, adding that exotic species must be handed over to licensed shelters.

Animals that cannot be released into the wild, used in other ways or sent to shelters should be slaughtered to protect local ecologies, it said.