Chinese woman faces Court after dumping 12.5 tonnes of catfish into lake for good luck.

A Chinese woman spent more than 90,000 yuan (US$13,000) buying 12.5 tonnes of exotic catfish and released them into a lake for a Buddhist ritual to bring herself good luck, then left them to die.

Prosecutors in eastern China’s Jiangsu province have initiated a public interest lawsuit against the woman, surnamed Xu, for releasing the huge volume of exotic catfish that took local workers 10 days to remove, thepaper.cn reported on December 29 last year.

The case, which is being heard at a court in Changzhou city, has put a spotlight on the 2000-year-old ritual of life release, the freeing of captive animals into the wild to create good karma but which often leads to animal cruelty and poses environmental risks.

Hoping to improve the luck of her family and friends, Xu bought 12.5 tonnes of Clarias, a genus of catfish, from a fish retailer, surnamed Liu, and then covertly released them into a major lake in the city in December 2021, local prosecutors said.

She chose the fast-growing, exotic fish species because of the cheaper price, but it still cost her 90,400 yuan, the prosecutors said.

The fish died soon after entering the water and attracted the attention of local government workers, who later spent 10 days retrieving the dead fish.

Xu and Liu were sued in September last year and ordered to pay more than 90,000 yuan in compensation and an unspecified amount in fines.

Both initially claimed they were innocent. “I intended to do something good. Why should I pay for that?” Xu was quoted as saying at the time.

Known widely as fangsheng, the practice of life release is supposed to save creatures destined for slaughter as a Buddhist act of mercy and compassion in return for good fortune and has a history dating back 2,000 years in China.

However, it is increasingly having the opposite effect in recent decades as it has spurred the creation of a lucrative industry where turtles, fish and birds are caught in the wild and then sold as “captive” animals for re-release back into the wild.

In an increasing number of cases, the animals used have been invasive species that pose a threat to China’s environment.

In September, a fangsheng devotee from Guangxi province in southern China was fined 28,000 yuan (US$4,000) for releasing 10 suckermouth catfish, 10 turtles and more than 10kg of pond loaches he bought from a local fish market into a reservoir.

He was ordered to recapture the suckermouth catfish, a highly-reproductive invasive species.

Main Source: SCMP