Some exotic dish you might want to try! Snake-bite chicken 'off the menu'

China's health authorities are reported to be putting a stop to restaurants serving chickens which have been bitten to death by poisonous snakes.

The dish, which is served by a small number of restaurants in Guangdong and Chongqing, is billed as detoxing.

But it has generated a storm of controversy in the media and among bloggers after a video of its preparation was circulated online.

The video shows a cook holding a snake and forcing it to bite a live chicken.

A week of intense internet discussion has reached the near-unanimous decision that it is cruel to kill live chickens by forcing deadly snakes to bite them repeatedly.

Some voices noted, however, that they found the cooked dish delicious.

"It's disgusting and really cruel," read one post on the popular portal sina.com.cn.

"Not only is it cruel and blood-thirsty, but totally amoral," the Chongqing Business Daily cited a neighbour to one of the restaurants as saying.

"Although nobody has been poisoned, this at the very least is an irregular way of slaughtering poultry," the business newspaper quoted a local health official as saying.

According to Reuters news agency, health authorities in Guangdong have already told restaurants to stop serving "poisonous snake-bitten chicken". It said officials in Chongqing had joined the ban.

Restaurants in China have long specialised in exotic dishes which have provoked condemnation from animal rights activists and health watchdogs - such as monkey brains scooped from a live animal, civet cat and deer foetus soup.

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Rare New Zealand bumblebee coming back to UK

A bumblebee which is extinct in the UK is to be reintroduced from New Zealand under plans being announced.

The short-haired bumblebee was exported from the UK to New Zealand on the first refrigerated lamb boats in the late 19th Century to pollinate clover crops.

It was last seen in the UK in 1988, but populations on the other side of the world have survived.

Now Natural England and several other conservation groups have launched a scheme to bring the species home.

International rescue

Poul Christensen, Natural England's acting chairman, said; "Bumblebees are suffering unprecedented international declines and drastic action is required to aid their recovery.

"Bumblebees play a key role in maintaining food supplies - we rely on their ability to pollinate crops and we have to do all we can to provide suitable habitat and to sustain the diversity of bee species.

"This international rescue mission has two aims - to restore habitat in England, thereby giving existing bees a boost; and to bring the short-haired bumblebee home where it can be protected."

As many as 100 of the bees will initially be collected in New Zealand and a captive breeding plan established, with the aim of eventually releasing them at Dungeness, Kent, where they were last seen.

They will be flown back on planes in cool boxes, and will not be disturbed, according to Natural England, as they will be in hibernation during transit.

The scheme's project officer Nikki Gammans, of the Stirling-based Bumblebee Conservation Trust, said the bee was a "keystone species" which was key to pollinating around 80% of important crops.

"By creating the right habitat for these bumblebees, we are recreating wildflower habitat that has been lost, which will be good for butterflies, water voles and nesting birds."

The partnership project is being run by Natural England, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust the RSPB and Hymettus.

Inner City, CBD View, Auckland, New Zealand, May 2009. David Lim

Some view of Auckland CDB, I used my Fujifilm digital camera to take these shot, all pictures were untouch (except for reducing the size).