Not all of the tens of millions of livestock and poultry affected by the heavy flooding in eastern China have been disposed of safely, a Xinhua investigative report showed. There is a risk that some of the drowned animals will end up on kitchen tables. 

In Anhui and Jiangxi provinces, over 160,000 pigs died in the flood waters, and the poultry death toll could be as high as 17 million, Xinhua reported.

According to Zhu Shuqing, head of the Bureau of Animal Husbandry in Anhui's Huaining County, the collapse of a local dam imperiled almost all the region's pigs. Over 3,000 pigs were eventually rescued from the flood, while another 3,400 pigs drowned, with the dead pigs still in flooded sties as of press time.

Even with clear regulations for the proper disposal of animals who die from drowning, injuries or unidentified disease, some dead animals are simply dumped haphazardly, posing a threat to both the environment and human health, according to Xinhua.

“The flood struck suddenly. I lost 2,000 ducks. They all drowned,” said a manager of a poultry farm in Anqing, Anhui, adding that the dead ducks were later dumped or buried. Some were also burnt for electric power generation.

The two provinces have issued notices of stricter inspections to stop such animals from entering the food production chain, according to the report. However, an anonymous official with the agricultural department of Xuancheng, Anhui said that the authorities aren't capable of examining each individual farm that is scattered across the county. It is therefore hard to fully prevent the improper dumping of drowned animals.

An official with a county-level animal husbandry and fishery bureau in Jiangxi told Xinhua that it is tempting to simply dump the animals, as other methods of disposal require more money and labor.

“For example, a pig weighs over 100 kilograms. A burial would require transportation and extensive digging, which would in turn require machine and human power,” the official said.

Some farmers noted that for every dead pig disposed of properly, they can receive 80 yuan in the form of a national subsidy. However, the subsidy application process often takes too long to be useful.