Wild animal attacks to be compensated in NW China
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Where to get compensation after being attacked by wolves? Not your insurer, but the local government will soon provide compensation for your loss in northwest China's Gansu Province.
The new regulation that will ensure this is due to take effect on Nov. 1. Gansu's regulation on compensating personal injury and property damage caused by protected land dwelling wild animals goes further than similar laws in other provinces.
Gansu is the sixth province to implement such a regulation after Beijing, Tibet Autonomous Region, and provinces including Yunnan, Jilin and Shaanxi.
However, in Gansu the regulation not only covers loss inflicted by state protected wildlife but also includes land dwelling wild animals that are "beneficial, or with major economic and scientific research value," such as wolves and wild boars, said Kou Mingyi with the provincial Forestry Department.
"The regulation covers 90 percent of the wild animals in Gansu," said Kou.
The regulation comes at a time when the number of wild animals has grown and more attacks on livestock have come as a result of China's beef-up wildlife protection.
In recent decades, many wildlife sanctuaries were set up, shotguns confiscated and the public's wildlife protection awareness raised.
The annual loss inflicted by state-protected wild animals was only 5 million yuan (751,400 U.S. dollars), but the loss caused by wolves, wide boars and some other wild animals reached 15 million yuan, said Kou.
According to the new regulation, people attacked by wild animals can get from up to three times to 20 times their annual income of the previous year. Farmers per capita income was 3,050 yuan in Gansu in 2009.
The regulation states that in case of livestock loss, for injured animals, farmers can get 20 percent of their market value back while for dead animals, 80 percent.
The compensation will be paid by the provincial government and the county government together each shouldering half the bill.
In the light of the growing number of wolves, some herdsmen in Subei Mongol Autonomous County have proposed to kill wolves.
"But we are not sure whether some species really have increased markedly since it is not easy to accurately calculate the number of wild animals," said Kou, "More attacks may be because people have encroached the animals' habitat and not because there are more animals than before."
"Providing compensation is more practical and consistent with the goal of protecting wildlife," said Kou.
Professor Liu Naifa of Lanzhou University said that their field survey showed that there was indeed an increase in wild animals but it was not the main reason for the growing attacks.
"I believe the regulation is a good one, but whether it can have a desirable effect depends on its implementation," said Liu.
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