Chinese man steals black swan from a park before making it into a soup. Surveillance video catches the man stealing one of four permanent black swans at The Cui Lake Park.
Could it be anymore deplorable?
A man in China has been detained after allegedly stealing a black swan from a park and then making a pot of soup out of it.
Surveillance footage captures the moment the man snatched the bird from a pond after beating it with a wooden stick.
The Chinese resident, known by his surname Wu, claimed that he only attacked the swan after the animal ‘pecked him when he was teasing it with a club’, according to local reports.
The ma was busted at his home after police found a pot of half-eaten swan dish in the kitchen.
Mr Wu was detained by local police following the incident the dailymail reports.
Wild exotic animals linked to coronavirus:
The Cui Lake Park, located in the city of Jinhua, Zhejiang province of eastern China, was home to four black swans for nearly four years.
On April 29, a park keeper phoned the police and said that one of the birds was missing, Chinese media reports.
Police going through park surveillance footage noticed Mr Wu leaving the park in a hurry whilst holding a wooden stick and a red bag.
Mr Wu was later caught by the police in his rented flat – with the leftovers of the swan broth.
When confronted by the officers, the thief confessed that he took his wife and children to the park in the afternoon.
Mr Wu claimed that he was upset after being pecked by the black swan when he teased the animal with a club.
The man then confessed to knocking out the swan with the wooden stick before taking it home and turning the waterbird into a casserole.
‘The black swan meat wasn’t tasty, but it did smell very nice,’ Wu said of his dinner.
It remains unclear if the ‘hungry’ resident would face any punishment.
The episode follows international outcry over the existence of wet markets in China which sell exotic wild animals for feasting, which some have blamed for igniting the coronavirus.
