1,000 Dead Ducks Pulled From River, 16,000 Pigs Found in Water
Weeks after thousands of dead pigs were fished from a river near Shanghai, nearly 1,000 dead ducks were removed from the waterways in the Sichuan province nearly 800 miles away.
The dead ducks were pulled from the Nanhe River in Pengshan County, which is in the western Sichuan province, according to state news agency Xinhua News.
Chinese officials did report that all of the duck carcasses removed from the river were disinfected and buried in an approved site, adding that there was no threat to the water supply or humans living near or along the river.
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The ducks were removed on Monday and were found inside around 50 woven plastic bags, Liang Weidong, an official with the county's publicity office, told Xinhua News Agency.
Weidong added that health officials were investigating what caused the ducks to die and where they came from.
The mass of dead ducks comes just weeks after Chinese officials removed more than 16,000 floating pig carcasses in a river that supplies water to the city of Shanghai.
The dead pigs were removed from the Shanghai River and Chinese authorities maintain that the river's water, which provides water to 20 million Shanghai residents, is still safe to drink.
Tags located on the dead pigs indicated that they were from a facility that is located in the Huangpu River, which connects with other tributaries that flow through the middle of Shanghai, Xinhua, the state news agency, revealed.
It has not been made clear why the pig carcasses were in the river or how the pigs died, but speculation is surrounding that fact that a disease had killed thousands of pigs in a village south of Shanghai earlier this month and that these pigs could have been infected as well.
"We will continue to trace the source, investigate the cause, co-operate with neighboring areas and take measures to stop the dumping of pigs into rivers," the Shanghai Municipal Agricultural Commission said in a statement posted on their website on Monday.
