Beijing bans, kills exotic flesh-eating fish
Date: 27-Dec-02
Country: CHINA
The Beijing Aquarium, which owned about 300 of the razor-toothed fish from the Amazon region, killed them all on Christmas Day after the government imposed the national ban.
The piranhas, which rarely attack humans in their native South American rivers, were given sodium hypochlorite, causing them to lose consciousness after 30 minutes, the newspaper said.
Hundreds of thousands of yuan were spent on killing the fish, it quoted aquarium manager Hu Weiyong as saying. The dead fish will become samples to show visitors.
Piranhas, a silvery-gold coloured fish with a red throat, can grow up to 20 inches (51 cm) in the wild and are banned in many countries.
