China postpones hunting auction

Foreign hunters are already targeting China

China has postponed a controversial auction of licences for foreigners to hunt wild animals, including endangered species, according to local media.

The auction would have offered the right to hunt yaks, wolves and other wild animals in five western provinces.

But the State Forestry Administration said on Friday that the auction - which had been due on Sunday - would be delayed until a later date.

Public hostility to the idea played a part in the decision, officials said.

"The response from the public is beyond our expectation," the official Xinhua news agency quoted SFA official Wang Wei as saying.

The licences were due to cover five areas of western China - Qinghai, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces and the autonomous regions of Ningxia and Xinjiang.

China's official media earlier said that a licence to hunt a wolf could go for about $200 (£105), while permission to shoot a yak could be as much as $40,000 (£21,000).

Shooting an argali, a large wild sheep, was set to cost about $10,000 (£5,000) while a blue sheep would cost $2,500 (£1,300), newspapers said.

The China Daily newspaper reported that foreign hunters are an important source of revenue for some provinces.

Last spring and autumn, about 150 foreign hunters from countries including the United States, Spain and Mexico spent nearly $4m hunting in north and south-west China, the paper said.