Beijing Tracks Down SARS-Shunned Snakes

First SARS, now snakes.

As China’s capital begins to return to normal following the SARS outbreak, it faces a slithery new dilemma – what to do with all those snakes.

Once prized by Chinese gourmets, snake meat has been shunned since researchers announced the fatal flu-like disease originated from wild animals.

Restaurants in hard-hit Beijing that once served snakes are taking them off the menu and “secretly releasing” them into the streets, the Beijing Morning Post newspaper said Tuesday.

The southern province of Guangdong, where the first cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome occurred, banned the sale of wildlife in restaurants in late May. Beijing has not imposed a similar ban, but the Chinese capital already barred restaurants from serving many types of animals.

Wayward snakes have become such a problem in some Beijing neighborhoods that the city Forestry Bureau has launched a “snake capture hot line.”

A woman who answered the hot line said more than 25 snakes had been caught in the past three weeks.

“And we are going after one right now,” said the zoo worker, who would only give her surname, Dong.

Dong said the largest snake caught yet was six feet long “and as thick as a forearm.” She said she didn’t know what species were involved, but said none were poisonous.

Captured snakes are taken to a “snake sanctuary” at the Beijing Zoo, the newspaper said. It said some will be added to the zoo’s collection, while others that cannot be raised in captivity will be returned to the wild.