Dead Ducks Found Floating In Chinese River As Dead Pig Count Continues To Rise

As the number of dead pig carcasses in the Shanghai Huangpu River continues to rise, another Chinese river has found itself with a similar problem.

A thousand dead ducks were found floating in the Nanhe river, which runs through the southern Chinese province of Sichuan, on Tuesday. Liang Weidong, a local official in Sichuan, told the state-run Xinhua News Agency that the dead birds were found inside roughly 50 woven plastic bags. Officials removed the birds from the bags and properly sanitized and disposed of the carcasses. Thankfully, the Nanhe river isn't a drinking water source for the area, which officials believe will prevent any threat to local citizens.

Meanwhile, local government officials are seeking to calm the nerves of the most vocal segment of population, the netizens. Many concerned citizens on China’s Twitter-like microblogging site, Weibo, are alarmed about what seems to be a bizarre trend of the dying or dead animals being dumped in rivers.

“How can you tell they are harmless when you don’t know how the ducks died?” one user posted on Weibo, according to the Financial Times.

Earlier this month, officials were removing thousands of dead pigs from the Huangpu River, which happens to be one of Shanghai’s main drinking water sources. Shanghai officials ensured its residents that the dead pigs had no effect on the quality of drinking water, despite the fact that almost 16,000 of the animals were found and removed. According to state news, the pigs had died from a common virus, the porcine circovirus, which isn't harmful to humans.

The pigs were eventually determined to have come from a farming village outside of Shanghai called Jiangxi. Farmers whose pigs had died resorted to illegal river-dumping because of a recent crackdown on the illegal purchase of dead and sick pigs.

Local newspaper Tianfu Morning News reported that tests are being conducted to ensure that the water has no toxins harmful to humans and to determine the cause of death.

Other cases of dead pigs were also discovered in the Xiangjiang River in Hunan province. According to Danwei.com, the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald reported last week, roughly 50 pigs were found on a shoal in the Xiangjiang river and were fished out and buried nearby.