Besides collecting garbage, the volunteers doing clean-up work on local waterways in suburban Wujing Park almost always have something else to pick up - dead pigs discarded into the Huangpu River.

Since they began their work in May last year, they have removed more than 200 pig carcasses, according to Chen Yin, a volunteer of the Shanghai Nomad Outdoor Activity Club.

Chen's Nomad club with 10 volunteers collects floating garbage, such as weeds, plastic bags and bottles, in the southwestern section of the Huangpu on a regular basis, usually once or twice a week.

"The number of floating dead pigs varies from time to time. We used to pick up as many as four in one day," said Chen, adding that summer is always the peak time for dead pigs to be washed up in Wujing Park.

Among animals, pig corpses are more often seen than chicken or dogs, Chen said.

"The pigs, normally weighing 30-60 kilograms, emanate a putrid odor, but we have never found any obvious wounds on their bodies."

Volunteers bury the pigs but have no idea where they come from.

According to Jin Shunqing of the Wujing Environmental Protection Office, the remains are probably from pig farms along the upper reaches of the Huangpu.

"Some farmers throw the bodies directly into the river when sick pigs die. This seriously pollutes the Huangpu," Jin explained.

Since pig cadavers pose a serious threat to the local water environment, the Wujing Town government issued a decree last year, ruling that all pig farms in the town should be gradually phased out.

Currently, the number of pig farms in the town has been cut from 89 last year to only two, with the total stocks reduced to 20 from nearly 5,000.

(eastday.com July 8, 2003)