http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-21921145

Around 1,000 dead ducks have been pulled from a river in southwest China, local officials say.

Residents found the dead ducks in Nanhe river in Pengshan county, Sichuan province, and alerted the environmental department, they said.

Local residents and livestock were not at risk as the river was not used for drinking water, officials added.

The news comes as the toll of dead pigs pulled from Shanghai’s Huangpu river passed 16,000.

Speaking in an interview with China National Radio on Sunday, Liang Weidong, a deputy director in Pengshan’s publicity department, said that the authorities were first made aware of the ducks on Tuesday.

Officials discovered over 50 woven bags which contained the carcasses of around 1,000 ducks in the river.

They were unable to determine the cause of death as some of the ducks were already decomposed, Mr Liang said, adding that the bodies had been disinfected and buried.

An initial investigation suggested that the duck corpses had originated from upstream and were not dumped by local Pengshan farmers, he said.
‘Thick soup’

The news has prompted concern and criticism from some users on weibo, China’s version of Twitter, with many expressing incredulity at the government’s assurance that the water is safe.

“Dead pigs, dead ducks… this soup is getting thicker and thicker,” wrote one person with the username Baby Lucky.

“The dead pigs haven’t even disappeared yet, and now the dead ducks emerge – does this society enjoy being competitive?” wrote netizen sugarandsweet. “The dead ducks in Pengshan river present us with a very practical problem, and show how society’s bottom line is getting lower and lower,” weibo user If So said. The news came as Shanghai’s municipal government confirmed that over 16,000 pigs corpses had been pulled from Huangpu river, which supplies drinking water to Shanghai.

DON’T EAT THE DUCK SOUP, SKEPPY PETE!!!!

neomyrtus_ said:

DON’T EAT THE DUCK SOUP, SKEPPY PETE!!!!

fair comment.

NOW you tell me!!

hang on just gotta go to the toilet

brb

hmmmmm sounds like a mossad hit.

More on the dead pigs story here. It’s a story of the sudden loss of an illegal revenue scheme, which led immediately to undercapacity problems with the legal disposal.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/25/shanghai-dead-pig-story-upstream

“Residents of Maogang looked on in despair as first dozens, then hundreds, and ultimately 10,164 dead pigs were pulled out of the Huangpu River. … floated downstream from Shaoxing, in the neighbouring province of Zhejiang … problem, but the causes – waterway pollution and failures to manage rivers across administrative boundaries and government departments – are old complaints.

“Dead pigs have always ended up in Shanghai. This time they just went there by river, instead of by truck,” It was only two years ago that pigs started to be dumped in the river. “In the past you could sell them, so they didn’t end up in the river.” The pig farmers all referred back to a court case two years ago, which shocked the city.

“Everyone in Shaoxing knows about the case, which saw 17 people tried. In November 2012, the three ringleaders were given life sentences. It was a typical tale for a pig-farming village. Dong Guoquan and two others ran an illegal butcherhouse, buying in dead pigs. “They got them cheap”. The city’s intermediate court found that in only two years Dong and the others had bought and butchered 77,000 pigs and sold the meat on for 8.65 million yuan. Most of them came from the townships of Fengqiao, where the village is, and Xinfeng.

“Once they’d been arrested nobody wanted to risk buying up dead pigs openly,” 57-year old villager Guo Yue (not his real name) told Southern Weekend. His village of Zhulin, in Xinfeng, is famous for supplying pigs to Hong Kong. But that meant more pigs were getting thrown in the river.
…
“A Zhejiang environmental protection report in 2011 found that 7.7 million pigs were being farmed in Shaoxing. On average 2% to 4% will die, which means between 150,000 and 300,000 corpses need to be disposed of. … there are no provisions for proper disposal in place. It was only in 2011, that Shaoxing saw any large scale construction of disposal pits.

It’s been nowhere near enough. Zhulin is a major pig farming village, but Chen Yunhua explained that there are only seven pits, with an eighth being built. One pit can handle 3,000 to 5,000 corpses. But 18,400 pigs died in the village in just the first two months of the year. Capacity is overstretched. …