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.

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