Poyang Lake, near the city of Nanchang in southeast China's Jiangxi Province, is the largest freshwater lake in China and should be a paradise for migratory birds. But this winter the atmosphere in the area became tense after villagers reported that poachers had poisoned several hundred swans.

Huang Xianyin, a conservationist from Henghu Township, collects the bodies of two swans and four wild ducks killed by poachers near Poyang Lake, January 4, 2009. [Jiangnan City Daily]

According to Huang Xianyin, a villager and volunteer conservationist from the lakeside township of Henghu, some poachers poison the swans while others favor barbed wire traps. Every day, he said, people put poison around the lake around noon, and return in the early hours of the morning to collect their catch.

On the afternoon of January 4, 2009, a reporter from Jiangnan City Daily traveled to Lianwei Township, Xinjian County. Walking around the lake with Huang Xianyin for about an hour, he saw the bodies of at least 40 swans and a large number of wild ducks.

Huang was in tears as he told the reporter that the bodies represented just a fraction of the night's kill. The poachers collect their catch before dawn as it is too risky to do so during the day.

Huang Xianyin, a conservationist from Henghu Township, collects the bodies of two swans and four wild ducks killed by poachers near Poyang Lake, January 4, 2009. [Jiangnan City Daily]