BY BAG
CR 19/3231/73
CONFIDENTIAL
RECEIVED IN
R CISTRY No.51
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128/5
23 May 194 M Dartek, Mr 83 Dinfreedy PA
LAZT
IC ORR ESQ
PEKING
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IMPORTATION OF CHINESE WILD LIFE INTO HONG KONG
You sent me a copy of your letter 7/3 of 8 March to Hugh Davies recording the Ambassador's conversation with WANG Tung on this subject. We have run up against an actual problem over which you may be able to help.
2.
A couple of months ago a local fish dealer was prosecuted for putting on sale five Giant Salamanders (Andrias davidianus davidianus). This prosecution vas under the Ordinance restricting the importation and possession of certain animals and birds. The Salamanders vere confiscated. Since this prosecution the Agriculture and Fisheries Department have received representations from the Merchants' Association which looks after the interests of fish dealers. The Association claims that the dealers have a legitimate and long-established trade in Salamanders from China. It has referred to an existing contract (which, the trade being run by a tightly controlled communist closed shop, we are unable to see) allowing for the supply of no less than ten tons of Giant Salamanders to Hong Kong over a six-month period. This figure seems highly unlikely, but it certainly points to a substantial trade in this amphibian.
As ve
explained in paragraph 4 of our telegram No. 208, the trade in Salamanders is in the hands of fish dealers who, unlike dealers in animals, are not licensed; and so our surveillance of what species they import is less perfect that it might otherwise be. The Association claims, that the Salamanders come from various provinces of China, and this seems to suggest that, however precarious the continued existence of the Giant Salamander may be elsewhere, there is no question of it being endangered in China.
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