Ten thousand artificially incubated snakes were recently freed to nature in Huangshan City of east China's Anhui Province.

Incubated in a snake breeding base in Qimen County, the nonpoisonous snakes will settle down in a local nature reserve.

Huangshan City each year will free a total of 50,000 artificially incubated snakes to nature with a view to better maintaining the ecological balance in the region.

As a tourist hotspot, Huangshan City started to breed snakes ten years ago, and has established 14 snake breeding bases and one snake research service.

The survival rate for the artificially incubated snakes can exceed 90 percent, as compared to less than 50 percent for the wild ones, according to experts.

(People’Daily 09/18/2001)