Nineteen rare Chinese alligators face starvation in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, due to insufficient funds for food.

The alligators were brought to the Alligator Pool holiday village in the suburbs of Chengdu in 1994 in order to draw more tourists.

But nine years later, the village never opened due to poor management and it now says it does not have the funds to feed the alligators, that are listed as one of the nation's first-class protected animals.

According to the village manager surnamed Gong, the village can only allocate less than 200 yuan (US$24) per month to feed the 19 2-metre-long alligators, meaning that each alligator only gets 10 yuan (US$1.2) each month in food.

Experts say a Chinese alligator normally eats 2.5 kilograms of fish per week.

"What can we buy with 10 yuan (US$1.2)?" Gong asked, "Each day we can only get some throw-away meat from the market."

Wu Guanfu, an alligator expert said the alligators can not survive the winter if they continue like this.

(China Daily August 23, 2002)