The beautiful yellow-breasted bunting is 'being eaten to extinction by China,' according to a report in The Guardian.
The birds, once abundant in Europe and Asia, could share the same fate as the passenger pigeon as they are killed in their millions for food in China.
According to conservation group BirdLife International, buntings breed north of the Himalayas and spend their winters in warmer southeast Asia, passing through eastern China where they are subject to hunting.
China did ban the hunting of the bird in 1997 following the initial population decline of the species, known in the country as the “rice bird”.
However, millions of the birds were still being killed for food and sold on the black market
According to a study in Conservation Biology journal, the population of the yellow-breasted bunting has plunged by 90% since 1980, and has almost disappeared from eastern Europe, Japan and Russia.
The beautiful bunting does not deserve to go extinct because of Chinese eating habits. Will you join me in urging China to crack down on illegal hunting to save it from extinction?
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