The Letters section of Science magazine on April 21, 2023 published five Chinese scientists reported that China had banned electric capture of earthworms and called for legislation to penalizes electric earthworm capture.
Chinese scientists often make policy recommendations to the Chinese government on environmental issues through letters to Science.
- Letters to Science: China bans electric capture of earthworm
- China Youth Daily article: The Profit Chain of Wild Earthworms
- Procuratorial Daily article: Electro-fishing for Earthworms: a Pain the Land Cannot Bear
- World Journal article: Soil Electrified to Catch Earthworms: A Gold Rush and Ecological Extermination Crisis
China bans electric capture of earthworms
from JIANGWEI ZHU , LI FU, MEIXIA GUO, MIN WANG, AND YAN ZHAOAuthors Info & Affiliations
The earthworm is widely distributed, with 4000 species in the world and more than 300 species in China (1, 2), where they are in demand as fishing bait, livestock feed, and components of traditional medicine (3). In recent years, poachers in China have started using soil electrocution to capture earthworms, putting earthworm populations and ecosystems at risk. In February, China prohibited the practice. The decision is a necessary first step to protect agriculture, but to ensure that electric capture ceases, China must follow up with legislation to support the implementation of the ban.
Known as “ecosystem engineers,” earthworms play a vital role in the bio-geochemical cycle (4). They can affect the biological, chemical, and physical processes of the ecosystem through feeding, digestion, excretion, and burrowing. The earthworm population, which is closely related to soil microorganisms, soil animals, and soil enzyme activities, can increase soil organic matter, improve soil structure, and increase soil fertility (5).
In the past, earthworms in China were captured manually, which limited the number that could be caught in a short amount of time and did not threaten the earthworm population or the soil ecosystem. In contrast, applying electric current to the soil can catch about 150 kg of earthworms in a day (6, 7). Removing earthworms at this scale threatens the species with local extinction and robs the targeted ecosystem of the benefits they provide (8).
This capture method threatens other species as well. The electric current may kill or harm soil organisms beyond earthworms. The changes could disrupt the food cycle for birds, arthropods, and mammals that depend on earthworms as a food source (9, 10). The sharp decrease of earthworms in the soil may also affect soil fertility and productivity, reducing crop yields (11).
Electric earthworm capture has quickly become widespread. Because earthworms are not included on the list of protected wild animals in China, there have been few legal ramifications for using the approach, despite the damage it causes. In February, the Chinese government took a step toward better agricultural stewardship when it unveiled its agriculture plan (12), which explicitly prohibits electric capture of earthworms, poaching of phaeozem, and other activities that damage the soil ecosystem. However, the financial benefits of large-scale earthworm poaching may provide poachers with an incentive to continue using electric capture despite the ban. To implement the ban effectively, China should pass legislation that specifies how poachers will be penalized if they continue to use soil electrocution. In addition, law enforcement agencies should be authorized to take action if they find poachers disregarding the policy.
“Crack down on soil destruction such as black soil theft and electric earthworm fishing.” was among the many directives in the high profile Party and Government Document #1 for 2023: Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council on the key work of comprehensive promotion of rural revitalization in 2023 is the February 2023 government agricultural plan the Chinese scientists referred to in their Letter to Science.
A search on the large Taobao e-commerce website for equipment to electrify fields to force earthworms in Chinese called 地龍儀 to the surface didn’t turn up the equipment so it seems that it has been taken off some e-commerce websites after the February 2023 order.
The Profit Chain of Wild Earthworms
It’s easy to pronounce death on earthworms, whether it’s one of them, or a whole bunch of them.
With a device called “an earth dragon device” 地龍儀 to capture earthworms, “a battery, two wires, inserted in the ground, earthworms immediately crawl out, it’s blood-chilling to watch.” In some places, it only takes 20 minutes to catch five or six pounds of earthworms, and a fully charged battery can work continuously for five hours. In the land that has not been “electrified” previously, a day of electrocutions bringing up two or three hundred pounds of earthworms is no problem.
In nature, earthworms have grown for hundreds of millions of years. Originally, the most important factors affecting their growth were temperature and precipitation, but now, humans have used technology to meddle.
The earthworm is captured, opened, rinsed, dried, and sold to the herbal market. There, it is called Dilong 地龍 or earth dragon: a Chinese herbal medicine included in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia and has the function of “clearing heat and calming fright, opening the ligaments, relieving asthma and as a diuretic”.
Although the earthworm has been used as a traditional Chinese medicine for nearly two thousand years, the capture of wild earthworms has never been as frenzied as it has been in recent years. Driven by economic interests, hundreds of tons of earthworms are electro-captured from the land, and people pick them up and dry them.
The man who electro-fishes earthworms says that more and more people with cardiovascular diseases in China need them. In China today, where protecting ecology is as much a concern as protecting health, wild earthworms have been thrust into the spotlight. Environmental organizations and local prosecutors have begun to sue merchants who sell earthworm meters, people who electro-capture earthworms, and owners who collect dried earthworms, destroying the ecology and soil; while on the other side, in herbal markets everywhere, earthworms are sold at high prices to pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and pharmacies, and eventually enter the human body.
”Once the machine starts up, ten thousand taels in gold arrive”
In the north, summer is not a suitable season for catching earthworms. This is something that Liu Yulian, a farmer’s wife in Shangqiu, Henan Province, knows very well. She has been involved with the “earthworm industry” for more than 20 years, and recently, a friend told her that she “can’t find earthworms anywhere at home”.
At this time of year, with high temperatures and little rain, the land is often cracked open and earthworms burrow deeper. Even so, there are still some people who bring their earthworm ‘earth dragon device’ to look for them in the fields. The earthworms, who are afraid of light and like darkness, are out at night and repose during the day, so this group of earthworm catchers are out at night and rest during theday, with lights, buckets and rubber shoes, and appear in the field after nightfall.
Sometimes, they are also “active during the day and repose at night”, usually after the beginning of spring. The nuisance earthworms are found in farmland, vegetable fields, parks, dry rivers, and mountain forests. Many people saw for the first time with such a “modern” technology to catch earthworms. They would stop to watch. Some people say, standing on the sidelines they can feel their feet getting numb from electric shock.
Earthworm catchers are not only found in Henan Province, but also in Suizhou, Anhui Province and Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, in the mountainous hills of the two regions, the mountains and forests of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, and the rubber land of Hainan.
They found earthworms by following their droppings on the surface of the earth, and more than 140 years ago, Darwin also observed earthworms as they defecated, eventually writing “Humus and Earthworms” [ The Formation of Vegetable Mould] and claiming, “The earthworm is the most valuable animal on earth, and with the earthworm there is fertile soil.”
But when the worm catcher finds the worm droppings, he thinks of money.
According to what the reporter’s heard from many earthworm buyers, the current price of dry earthworms is 90-120 RMB per pound, and the price varies with the variety of earthworms and the quality of finished products. In areas rich in earthworm resources, a farmer can catch hundreds of pounds of wet earthworms a day with the help of a “ground dragon device”, and eventually 10 pounds of wet earthworms can be dried to 1 pound of dry earthworms.
Although farmers know that the presence of earthworms benefits the soil, there are few ways for many rural people to earn money faster and easier than with electro-captured earthworms.
More than 20 years ago, when Liu Yulian first came into contact with the “earthworm industry,” the capture was done by digging with a hoe, opening the belly with a razor blade, and then drying on the floor, and the dried earthworms were about 20 yuan/kg. The dried earthworms were about 20 yuan per kilogram. “(Wet earthworms) were only 30 cents per catty, and it took 40 pounds a day to earn 10 or so yuan.” Liu Yulian said, “In those days there was less of that business.”
In the past 20 years, the price of dilong earth dragons has increased tenfold. 2021, the market price of fully open wide dilong (a dilong acquisition industry term, according to the processing, dilong can be divided into fully open, half open, unified goods, etc. – reporter’s note) at one point rose to 275 yuan / kg.
She told the reporter that in her village, many villagers have started to get involved in the “earthworm industry” only in the last two or three years. In her opinion, this is due to the increasing demand and price of wild earthworms in the herb market. The emergence of the earthworm meter has also made it possible to capture earthworms more efficiently. In addition, the emergence of short video platforms such as Jitterbug and Flash Player has also brought more people into contact with this “lucrative” industry.
Liu Yulian, who sells earthworms and also recycles dried earthworms, says she can collect 1,000 pounds of dried earthworms a day during the peak season. Just a short time ago, someone from Heze, Shandong Province, came for a field trip, and she showed her customers the machine that “produces earthworms in seconds”, and she received goods from all over the country, including Sichuan, Yunnan, etc.
”Once the machine starts, ten thousand taels in gold comes” “Working part-time, I don’t really make any money; it is better to stay home and do earthworm processing.” Those merchants who collect earthworms are making attractive slogans on the Internet. They regard “earthworm industry” as a new “road to rural wealth” and call earthworms “soft gold of the countryside”.
Wan Quan, a young man from Xuchang, Henan, noticed the “earthworm industry” on the Internet in the spring of 2019, when one catty of dried earthworms could be sold for more than 80 yuan.
At that time, there was a fairly mature industry chain for earthworm fishing. Wan Quan, who had previously lost money in business, had doubts about this “business project” until that summer when he went to Yucheng in Shangqiu and saw the developed “industry chain” with his own eyes.
Wan Quan told China Youth Net that the boss who took him to start his own business was in Yucheng, initially collecting earthworms on a “two-eight” bicycle, but now, driving a “big gold cup” car, building a decent villa in the village and opening a supermarket. The people in their village who earn money around earthworms are “more than enough”.
Wan Quan spent 800 yuan to bring back a set of equipment from Yucheng to start a “business”. “The starting point was a dried-up river on the outskirts of the city. Now, Wan Quan’s “earthworm processing factory” has been opened in Weining, Guizhou, and Xuzhou, Jiangsu, and every time he goes out to his hometown, he will go to the “entrepreneurial river” to see.
He heard that in 2016 or so, some people in Luohe in Henan Province had just began to do “earthworm” business. Some rural elderly people were not even willing to spend the money to buy the Dragon device, “they would just take their hoes and dig, the river embankments would collapse from their digging.”
According to the Court Verdicts Online 裁判文書網 website shows in 2020, in Peixian, Jiangsu Province, a young man was electrocuted while testing a purchased earthworm catcher outside his home, leaving behind his parents in their early 70s, his wife in her early 30s, and two young daughters. It was also reported in the media that in 2022, in Rugao, Jiangsu, a villager in his 70s was electrocuted while capturing earthworms with his homemade earth dragon device.
Nevertheless, among people in this business, there are more stories about the “dream of getting rich”.
”(Want to do) this thing is to have more goods.” Wan Quan told reporters that he knew of a boss in Sichuan’s Xiaoliang Mountains who produced 200 tons of dried products in three months last year. He said, “Very many families have gotten rich from earthworms”.
Overall upward demand in the last 10 years
There is no information on who invented the earth dragon device, but in China, there are many businesses that produce and sell it.
Over the years, the earthworm catching device has been upgraded several times by design revisions made by various manufacturers. Solutions for preserving earthworms have appeared on the market. Some manufacturers produce “belly-opening machines” specifically for cutting open earthworms and wire screens for drying earthworms.
An enterprise named Zhongshan Juchi Electric Co., Ltd. applied for the registration of the trademark of “Dilong Yi” and “Earthworm Machine” in 2017 and 2018. Another enterprise producing Dilong Yi located in Zhongshan City requested the invalidation of the disputed trademark on the ground that “Dilong Yi” is a common name. Another enterprise producing earthworm machine in Zhongshan City requested the invalidation of the disputed trademark on the ground that “earthworm machine” is a common name, but the disputed trademark was finally upheld. In the patent search system of the State Intellectual Property Office, there are a number of invention patents related to “Di Long Yi”, of which the earliest one was filed on May 23, 2016.
In fact, the emergence of earth dragon devices or earthworm machines was well advanced in 2016.
A local earthworm farmer in Yulin, Guangxi, recalls that the phenomenon of using car “water batteries” for electric earthworms began to appear around 2005. Jia Liming, who has been engaged in earthworm farming for 31 years, remembers that he noticed the emergence of “electric earthworm machines” more than a decade ago.
In 2014, there were media reports that wild earthworms were being sold in Qionghai City and Anding County, Hainan Province, by electric fishing with “earthworm machines,” which “rose to as high as 150 yuan per kilogram in 2012 and 2013. Sun Zhenjun, a professor at the Department of Ecology at China Agricultural University, who has been involved in earthworm research for more than 30 years, only noticed the emergence of electric earthworm machines around 2013.
The manufacturing of this equipment is not complicated. Liu Yulian told reporters that her own family has production and sales of electric earthworm machine and earthworm belly-opening machine.
The reporter searched through “Enterprise Search” and found that there are 15 enterprises in Henan whose business scope includes “earthworm machine”, 13 of which are concentrated in Jegou Town, Yucheng County, established between 2019 and 2020, and some of them sell “earthworm opening machine” and “lithium battery”, and some of them also acquire Chinese herbs. In Liu Yan Village, Liu Yan Village, Jie Gou Town alone, there are six individual industrial and commercial households related to the “earthworm industry”.
Those wild earthworms caught by electricity need to be mixed with “ground potash” first and then put into the “belly opener” one by one. After the earthworm is opened, it has to be rinsed with water to clean the mud and sand inside the belly. After that, they are flattened out one by one and dried on a wire mesh or bamboo pole. “Once they dry in the sun they taste exactly like dried fish.”
In some large processing sites, there are more than 10 hired farm women who open the bellies of earthworms at the same time. And the opening and drying of thousands of earthworms is a time-consuming task. A girl in the countryside said that after she electro-fished 20 pounds of earthworms it took her 4 hours to finish processing them.
The huge fishy smell of earthworms often attracts flies in the yard, but this does not deter many farmers from going for them. In Liu Yan village, some villagers set up the purchase point of dried earthworms on the roadside opposite the village committee, and some people bring customers who come from Jiaozuo for inspection to test the “earth dragon instrument” by the ditch in front of Liu Yan police office in Jie Gou town police station.
The mature earthworm processing industry in Yucheng, Shangqiu attracts people from all over the country who want to “dig gold” from the earth. Shangqiu is adjacent to Bozhou, and the town of Kegou in Yucheng County is located at the junction of the two cities, just 20 kilometers away from downtown Bozhou. Bozhou, Anhui Province, is known as the “Chinese Medicine Capital” and has the “world’s largest Chinese herbal medicine market”.
A boss surnamed Chen, who is engaged in the wholesale business of Chinese herbal medicine in Bozhou, Anhui Province, told reporters that he received the ground dragon “basically wild”, including earthworms from Guangxi, Sichuan, Anhui and Henan.
Most of these dilong earth dragons go into pharmaceutical companies. “As of 2021, the demand of proprietary Chinese medicine enterprises accounts for 57.56%, the demand of Chinese medicine beverage enterprises is about 28.52%, and the export, health care products and others account for about 13.92%.” Jia Haibin, the chief data analyst of Tiandi Yuntu Chinese medicine big data platform, told China Youth Daily that there are 40 kinds of listed Chinese patent medicines that contain the Chinese herb Dihuang, and among the Chinese patent medicines, the top three products in demand for Dihuang include, Su Huang Cough Capsules, Brain Heart Capsules, and Breast Block Elimination Tablets.
The data provided by the platform also shows that the top-ranking company in terms of demand for Dilong is a pharmaceutical company in Shaanxi, and many of the company’s products are concentrated in the field of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular drugs, including “Brain Heart Capsules” is the company’s products, the company’s official website information shows that this drug is “cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases The company’s official website information shows that this drug is “basic medicine for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases”.
The China Cardiovascular Health and Disease Report 2021, released on June 23, shows that two out of every five deaths in China are due to cardiovascular disease. The report also shows that China’s cardiovascular prevalence is continuing to rise, with a projected 330 million people living with cardiovascular disease in China. Globally, cardiovascular disease is regarded as the “number one killer”.
Jia Haibin told reporters, “There are more and more elderly now and the demand for cardiovascular drugs is growing, keeping the overall demand (for dilaudid) steadily increasing over the last 10 years.” The exact figure is that the demand of the medicinal market for dilaudid rose from 400 tons in 2010 to 675 tons in 2020.
”Field capture accounts for about 70%”
”(The amount of Dilong) is increasing year by year recently.” The person in charge of an Anhui Bozhou herbal beverage company told reporters that compared with 10 years ago, the use of dilong has increased by seventy to eighty percent. The company mainly produces Dilong herbal tablets and Dilong formula granules, “mainly going to hospitals and pharmacies.”
The person in charge of the above-mentioned company told reporters that his company mainly uses Guangdi Long, “farmed basically no.” “Because it is stipulated in the pharmacopoeia, only those four species.”
In the Chinese Pharmacopoeia 2020 中國藥典 edition, the term “Di Long” refers to the dried bodies of four species of earthworms in the family Vulcanidae: the Ginseng Ringworm, the Common Ringworm, the William Ringworm, and the Pectinate Ringworm. The first one is customarily called “Guang Di Long” and the last three are customarily called “Hu Di Long”. The artificially bred earthworm is mainly “Dahei No. 2”. This is an artificially selected species, and the earthworm Dahei No. 2 is not yet allowed to be used in traditional Chinese medicine because it is not listed in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia for the use of the Chinese herb “Di Long”. This widely farmed earthworm is “90% supposed to be in the fishing industry”.
Professor Sun Zhenjun of the Department of Ecology, College of Resources and Environment, China Agricultural University, told reporters that Guang Di Long is mainly produced in Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan, while Hu Di Long is mainly produced in Shanghai, Zhejiang and Henan.
”Before 2000, there was only one species, which was called Guang Di Long, scientifically known as Ginseng ring worm, and then (this kind of Di Long) became less and less.” Sun Zhenjun said, “In 2000, the Chinese Pharmacopoeia added three more species of Shanghai Dilong, which has a slightly wider distribution than the wide Dilong.”
For more than 10 years, despite the huge demand for Diosaurus in the Chinese herbal medicine market, Guang Di Long and Shanghai Di Long have not been able to achieve large-scale breeding.
”There is no technical breakthrough because it is too wild.” Sun Zhenjun said that in Hainan, they found its main distribution area in Hainan by investigating the distribution of the resources of the wide ground dragon, and tried to protect the environment in situ to promote the ecological proliferation of the wide ground dragon.
In Guangxi, the number of people electro-fishing earthworms is decreasing, and the number of people farming wide earth dragons is increasing. 31-year-old Lu Fang 2020 began farming wide earth dragons, he has 7 acres of land, raising the acquired wild wide earth dragons, he is still slowly familiar with their habits, “need to have experience”, “careful, and good days, then The net profit of an acre of land can reach 10,000 to 15,000 yuan.”
But Lu Fang told reporters that today there are many ground dragon farmers whowhile they raise earthworms, also catch they wild, “to make a quick buck.” This phenomenon also exists in Henan Yucheng. The person in charge of a “professional cooperative for earthworm farming” told reporters that she has “both wild and farmed earthworms” here, and she raises earthworms “on her own” while going to collect dried earthworms from various places.
”There is no way to compare its reproduction rate with that of Dapin II.” Sun Zhenjun said, “From the analysis of modern medicinal chemistry, I guess, there is not much difference (between the two).”
Jia Liming also told China Youth Net that in terms of protein content, active ingredient content, etc., “artificially farmed earthworms are no worse than wild earthworms”.
The market price of the dried body of artificially farmed earthworm Dapin II is 60 yuan-80 yuan/kg, which is cheaper than wild earthworms, but many manufacturers are afraid to use it. “Regular manufacturers (sources) are very formal. If it’s not formal it will break the law.” Jia Liming said.
However, an earthworm kinase extracted from this species of earthworm can be used in western medicine. A western medicine for ischemic cerebrovascular disease, earthworm kinase enteric capsules (State Drug Administration H20044080), is a group of protein hydrolytic enzymes extracted from artificially farmed earthworms of the species Aizheng (i.e., “Dahei No. 2” earthworm).
In Jia Liming’s opinion, the farming of earthworms is best. This protects wild earthworms. “Because farmed earthworms are wild animals, farming them does not destroy the ecological environment.”
”The use of earthworms is far from what some of the currently available reports suggest; Chinese medicine is being used, Western medicine is being used. Health products, cosmetics and food are being used.” A long-time nature conservation expert told reporters, “It is possible to protect earthworms in the wild by breeding and reproducing them in captivity.” “It is necessary to solve the problem of conservation with the problem of development.”
But in fact, from the source of earthworms on the Chinese herbal medicine market, “farming, semi-farming (field capture of young fattening) accounted for about 30%, field capture accounted for about 70%.” Jia Haibin told the China Youth Daily-China.com reporter that in Guangdong and Guangxi, the traditional production areas of dilong earth dragons, due to the excessive capture of earthworm resources in recent years, “the production is declining year by year, and in previous years a main production town had thousands of people catching earth dragons when there were more, but now there are only dozens of people, and the purchase points are also decreasing.”
Jia Liming thinks that we can try to include the artificially farmed earthworm “Da Ping No. 2” in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, and include it in the catalog of Chinese herbal medicines to break the vicious circle caused by the transition to wild earthworm fishing, including the destruction of soil and ecology. Sun Zhenjun also supports its inclusion in the pharmacopoeia.
”Shifting positions”
For many years, in Yulin and Guangxi, electrocuting earthworms to make herbal medicine “is a relatively common practice”, but now “there is less electrocuting”.
Guangdi Long farmer Lu Fang told reporters that as a child, earthworms were a few cents a pound, someone in the village would use teacakes to dry them but in areas with more earthworms “after a while it will climb up and then faint”
Between 2005 and 2008, local people began to use “storage batteries” to electro-capture earthworms. “When electric capture of earthworms hit its peak, those people can create a profit of 100,000 yuan, 200,000 yuan a year.” Lu Fang said, “It lasted until about 2017, and then it wasn’t so busy.”
But the market demand for the ground dragon has not decreased, the price of the ground dragon is still all the way up, some people began to “shift to a different region”.
”Some perennial buyers of processing households have run to Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces to develop new production areas in the past two years, and the acquisition of new production areas is still possible.” Jia Haibin told reporters that parts of Anhui, Henan, Hunan and other provinces have also become new production areas of the ground dragon.
From the number of suppliers of dilong earth dragon origin in recent years, ranked in the top 10 are Guizhou, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Yunnan, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Hebei, Jiangsu and Henan.
In August 2021, Wan Quan opened his earthworm processing plant in Xueshan Town, Weining County, Bijie City, Guizhou Province.
”Because the environment is better there. There are more mountains.” Wanquan said the longest earthworm he had seen in Weining was more than 1 meter long. So he took 10 earth dragon devices to Weining and distributed the equipment for free to local farmers, who then went to the mountains and caught wild earthworms and sold them to him. He also rented a local private house and hired workers to open, clean and dry the earthworms.
”The (Weining) side has been able to work until the New Year, unlike the northern season.” Wan Quan told reporters.
In Weining County, prosecutor Li Ai had never before seen such large-scale predation on wild earthworms.
Li Ai told China Youth Net that from July and August 2021, there were successively ground dragon buyers from Henan, Anhui, Sichuan and other places with ground dragon instruments to Weining, renting the people’s houses first in every place, and then sending out the machines.
Li Ai said that in November last year, some forest rangers and villagers reflected to the Forestry Bureau and the Public Security Bureau that there were “people playing earthworms in the mountains. The Weining County Procuratorate learned about the situation almost at the same time and decided to study “how to deal with such a situation according to the law,” and finally they decided to “save the earthworms” by filing a “public interest lawsuit” against people in the industry chain. They finally decided to “save the earthworms” by filing a “public interest lawsuit” against those in the chain.
”There are about seven or eight towns with this situation.” Li Ai told reporters that in one of the towns, more often than not, there are six or seven bosses acquiring and processing wild earthworms.
The processing point is responsible for opening belly, drying temporary workers are mostly rural women in their fifties and sixties, while out electric earthworms are mostly people in their forties and fifties who stay in the village, both men and women, and fewer young people. “There are also people who previously worked outside, heard that there is this business can be done in the old home, back to specialize in this.” Li Ai said.
From the shipment record of a foreign buyer, Li Ai learned that the buyer sent out 1,804 kilograms of dried earthworms from Weining from March 9 to May 31. From the collection record of a local electric earthworm farmer, it was found that from March to June, “the value of the goods he sold had gone to about 40,000 yuan.”
For the past two months, Li Ai has been running around the mountains for the public interest litigation, but he found that “saving the earthworms” was difficult.
”They do not have a sense of law, think that thing is all underground anyway, hit seems not to affect anything, anyway, not in their own land, but the benefits earned are personal.” Li Ai said, “We went down to investigate the process, many people directly said, ‘the state has no legal provisions, you can not prohibit us to engage in this thing’.”
Li Ai told reporters, “In fact, our country’s law has provided for, but the legislation is too much in principle.”
In preparation for the beginning of the public interest litigation, they went through the Wildlife Protection Law, the Environmental Protection Law, the Agricultural Law, the Land Management Law, etc., and “found no specific regulations that could correspond to the use of (earthworms), and earthworms are not on the list of protected species of the PRC.”
They also invited the Public Security Bureau, the Environmental Protection Bureau, the Forestry Bureau, the Agricultural and Rural Bureau, to hold a seminar to hear the views of the executive branch. “There was a lot of controversy, and in the end there was no consensus.” Li Ai told reporters, “various departments have said that this thing has not been dealt with elsewhere, is it a fine, detention, or confiscation of tools?”
And so the prosecutor’s office into the “investigation and evidence phase”, Li Ai found that “the objects of investigation is very resistant. Many people are not willing to cooperate.”
Sometimes, the electric earthworm people see them, carrying equipment to the mountains, according to the rules of public interest litigation case they have no way to take coercive measures. “After all, they are also instructed by someone.” Li Ai said that sometimes they go to find the processing site of the buyer, the buyer often avoid seeing, see will also be scolded, some even moved the field to other places overnight.
After two months of complex investigation and evidence, Weining County Procuratorate has filed six civil public interest litigation cases for electrocution, acquisition and processing of earthworms. However, in the application of the law and the quantification of ecological damage, Li Ai was worried that it was impossible to reach a unified opinion with the judges. Previously, there was no precedent for the national procuratorial authorities to file civil public interest litigation cases on earthworm protection.
In 2020, an environmental organization filed a public interest lawsuit against three home earthworm machine manufacturers in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province. The Zhuhai Intermediate Court of Guangdong Province ruled at first instance that earthworms are wild animals with an important place in the soil ecosystem, and that the means of their economic use by humans must be within reasonable limits. The three companies, including Ronger Optoelectronics, sold electric earthworm machines so that purchasers hunted earthworms by means of electric shocks, which was not conducive to the sustainable use of earthworms and the soil ecological environment.
The public interest litigation case, known as the “first case of electric earthworm machine” by the media, finally reached the Guangdong Province High People’s Court. The High Court rejected the appeals of three companies and upheld the first instance verdict.
In addition to the fact that there is no precedent for prosecutors to file lawsuits, Li Ai’s other concern is whether there will be an impact on the judiciary’s push for earthworm conservation because the geodon is involved in the Chinese medicine industry. Still, he hopes that “people will find a balance between the use and protection of natural resources when using them.”
”A vicious cycle.”
What worries Sun Zhenjun is the impact that the decline of earthworms will have on the land.
”If everyone is getting it that way, it has something to do with the quality of the farmland. There are no earthworms left in the farmland, how can you produce food out of good land without them?” Secondly, Sun Zhenjun says, there is the issue of biodiversity involved. “Not only does it have an effect on this earthworm, but on other soil organisms, soil nematodes, soil mites, and spiders, etc.”
”In fact, earthworms play a very important role inside the ecosystem.” A longtime expert in nature conservation told reporters, “(Electric earthworms) are also destructive to the ecosystem. Although they are not a protected species, not a precious and endangered species, it is a problem for biodiversity conservation.”
Previously, many media reported on the phenomenon of electric earthworms, describing the behavior as “extermination”.
”The hunting of earthworms, is it extinction style, this needs to be further explored.” The nature conservation expert mentioned above said that in his opinion, earthworms are extremely fertile and have a wide range of survival, “unlike pandas whose numbers are limited.” “It is not yet an ‘extinction hunt’, and the damage caused by pesticides and fertilizers (to earthworms) may be a little wider in geographical scope.”
But in this expert’s opinion, this (trapping) is problematic.
”What’s wrong with the soil is what’s wrong with the whole way we use land. Electric earthworms are just one of the problems, the tip of the iceberg.” The earthworm is also the victim, that longtime expert in natural environmental protection told the China Youth Daily and China News Net reporter.
Sun Zhenjun agrees that the decrease of earthworms is a fact, and the reasons are multiple. Firstly, the massive use of pesticides, chemical fertilizers and herbicides, etc., the soil is facing increasing pollution, which makes the wild earthworm population lower; secondly, there is an increasing demand for earthworms from traditional Chinese medicine; and then there is the emergence of the earthworm dragon device, which makes the population of earthworms even smaller.
”Now it’s a vicious cycle.” Sun Zhenjun said.
”We agricultural experts have long advocated the need for cropland to lie fallow and for crop rotation.” The expert said, “We are using the soil in a predatory way. It’s not really just talking only about the electric earthworm aspect, it’s the herbicides that are scarier and make the soil slab.”
The use of wild earthworms poses another problem: some of the earth dragons used in Chinese medicine have heavy metal content.
According to the notice issued by the provincial Food and Drug Administration, over the years, in the drug sampling, often appear in the case of “ground dragon” sampling failed, including the failure due to excessive “heavy metal”.
The Sichuan Food and Drug Administration found in a sample test in 2018 that a batch of Dilong sold by Sichuan Fulong Pharmaceutical Co. to Jiepai Town Health Center in Weiyuan County failed due to “impurities, acid insoluble ash, total ash and heavy metals”. The non-conforming samples also included heavy metals.
”In fact, all sectors have the responsibility and obligation to protect the diversity of life, but we tend to think that protecting biodiversity is only for the conservation authorities, which is one-sided.” That nature conservation expert believes that “the utilization sector has to take the initiative to take responsibility for sustainable use and protection of resources. The Chinese medicine sector that doesn’t think ahead is blocking the way for Chinese medicine itself.”
Wan Quan also heard some wind about the “ban on electric earthworm fishing”, but in many places, “people do it secretly or quite a lot”.
In 2021, Wanquan stayed in Weining for a month, handed over the processing site to his brother, and went to his own earthworm processing site, which opened in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province. In the second half of this year, Wanquan plans to go to Shaanxi, “because Shaanxi is a new source of goods that he joined just last year”. Wanquan’s brother is in Weining, where he continues to recycle earthworms and process and dry them.
He is also making another handful of plans: next year, he is ready to open an earthworm farm. “If one day the state just says, earthworms can no longer be electrified, I will immediately close.” Wan Quan said, “You can not do it without electricity, you have to think of some other way, because it is a product in short supply.”
(Liu Yulian, Wan Quan and Lu Fang are pseudonyms in the text) (Reporter Li Qiang)
Electro-fishing for Earthworms: a Pain the Land Cannot Bear
电捕蚯蚓，土地不能承受之痛
Procuratorial Daily article by Guan Ying and Wang Yan
June 15, 2022 Beijing Justice Network Media Co.
Focus
Earthworms are a key species in the sustainable use of soil and are known as “amazing underground workers”. But since some time, wild earthworms have become “monk meat” in the eyes of some unscrupulous people, who use special instruments to catch earthworms from the soil as a “way to get rich”.
When you search for “electric earthworm catcher” 電補蚯蚓神奇 on some e-commerce platforms, nearly 60 brands and thousands of products appear. Some online stores even advertise that they can “catch 600 pounds of earthworms per day”. In the eyes of these earthworm catchers, there is only “how many earthworms I caught today and how much money I can sell”, and they rarely think that such behavior can cause serious damage to the ecological environment.
In April 2022, the prosecutors of the Lianshui County Public Prosecutor’s Office in Jiangsu Province, during a routine inspection of agricultural protection public interest litigation, unearthed this production, supply and marketing “one-stop” electric earthworm industry chain and the unbearable pain caused to the land behind this industry production chain.
Lucrative profits attract many earthworm trappers
“That day we just walked to the edge of the field, we found someone holding a rectangular instrument placed in the field. After a while, we saw earthworms burrowing out of the ground ……,” Xu Guijuan, a prosecutor in the fifth prosecution department of the Lianshui County Prosecutor’s Office, clearly remembered what she saw on April 8 this year at the edge of the field in Chen Shi Town, the county, “I was wondering, what kind of machine is this? I was wondering what kind of machine is this? What are you going to do with so many earthworms?”
Lianshui County is a large agricultural county. Since 2021, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Lianshui County has made agricultural protection the focus of public interest litigation. Xu Guijuan and her colleagues take time to inspect the grassroots townships almost every week. Intuition told her that the instrument was very suspicious.
Xu Guijuan immediately find the villagers nearby to understand the situation, it was learned that this instrument is called “earth dragon instrument” 地龍儀, is specifically used to catch earthworms. As long as the conductive needle on the instrument is inserted into the ground and the switch is turned on, the instrument can instantly release high-voltage electricity to the nearby land. Under the stimulation of the current, the earthworms in the ground breathing difficulties, they will be scramble to burrow out of the ground. Under normal circumstances, an adult can easily catch hundreds of pounds of earthworms every day using the “earth dragon instrument”.
Earthworms are used to treat typhoid fever, dysuria, wind-heat headache, etc. They are the main source of the Chinese medicine “dried dragon” and the Western medicine‘s “earth kinase”. At the same time, the protein content of earthworms is high. These captured earthworms are either sent to illegal processing sites to be made into dried earthworms and then sold to some pharmaceutical manufacturers, or acquired and sold to feed mills to be made into highly nutritious feed for breeding. “According to the survey, ‘dried earthworms’ can be sold for more than 300 yuan per kilogram in Shanghai, Guangdong and other places. Since earthworm farming cannot meet the huge demand of the market, the price of acquiring earthworms is still rising year by year.” Xu Guijuan told the reporter.
Because of the lucrative profits, some people thought of wild earthworms. Electro-fishing for earthworms became a way to make money, and this led to a series of products and “services” –
Open the online shopping platform to search for keywords such as “earth dragon instrument” “electric earthworm”, there will be nearly 60 brands of thousands of products. The price of these products range from 100 yuan to more than 500 yuan, the weight is basically in about 3 kg, simple operation.
With convenient tools, of course, there must also be other acquisition and processing of “security”. Some people set up illegal processing points in towns and villages, specializing in acquiring fresh earthworms and making them into dried earthworms. There are five such illegal processing points in a town in Lianshui alone. These processing sites can send thousands of pounds of dried earthworms to pharmaceutical factories in Henan and Hebei every day. According to the calculation that 10 pounds of live earthworms can be dried and made into 1 pound of dried earthworms, almost ten thousand pounds of earthworms are caught every day.
Endanger the safety of agricultural production
Such a situation is very distressing to Xu Guijuan and her colleagues. So, are there any other townships in Lianshui County where such a situation exists? Xu Guijuan decided to go to all the towns in the county with her colleagues to find out.
In the unannounced visit, the prosecutor found that the phenomenon of electric earthworm fishing in the townships are different degrees of existence. A considerable number of farmers think: “Now the work is not very good to find, do this to make money quickly and easily, the initial investment of only a couple of hundred dollars will soon have a return. Besides, earthworms are everywhere, so it doesn’t matter if you catch a little ……”
So, earthworms are really catching a little no matter what? “I now obviously feel that the soil in the ground is clumped, and the water storage and soil quality are not as good as before. ……” Lao Wang, who has been contracting farmland for 16 years in Huangying Town, Lianshui County, complained about this. After his land was “patronized” several times by electric earthworm trappers, the earthworms were almost extinct, affecting the ecology of the farmland.
Old Liu is a large grain farmer in Chen Shi town. In recent years, there are always people in the land with the “Dragon Instrument” to, often he blows people away on this side, there are people sneaking into the land …… For this reason, Lao Liu also installed a 24-hour monitoring, but with little success.
“Earthworms are an important member of maintaining soil ecology and play a very important role in maintaining soil fertility. The earthworm loosens the soil and prevents soil caking, and also degrades pollutants in the soil. At the same time, the feces it discharges after swallowing the soil is rich in active organic substances and many elements such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, so we will improve the soil by increasing the number of earthworm populations in the soil.” Yang Youzhao, director of Huaian Arable Land Quality Protection Station, told Xu Guijuan, “We are now vigorously promoting ecological agriculture, which requires maintaining soil biodiversity, and earthworms are even more indispensable. Lianshui is an important grain-producing area in northern Jiangsu, and it is very important to protect earthworms.”
Dong Yuanhua, a researcher at the Nanjing Soil Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told reporters, “Earthworms are called the engineers of the soil and are indicators of the health of the soil. When we evaluate the quality level of the soil, one criterion is the number of earthworms per square meter. It is generally believed that if the number of earthworms per square meter of soil is greater than 50, the soil is in a healthy state; if the number is between 20 and 50, the soil is in a moderate degradation state; if the number is between 4 and 20, the soil is in a severe degradation state; and if the number is less than 4, the soil is in a very unhealthy state.”
The act of electro-fishing earthworms not only affects the health of cultivated soil, but also poses a danger to the production of other agricultural products.
Asparagus is a special agricultural product of Lianshui, with a planting area of about 20,000 mu and an annual output value of 800 million yuan, and the product is sold to 20 provinces and cities nationwide. However, because of the destruction of the soil ecology due to the electro-fishing of earthworms in the ground, growers have to spend huge amounts of money on earthworm manure containing earthworm larvae to improve the soil quality. It is understood that some asparagus growers spend millions of yuan each year on purchasing earthworm manure and on manual transportation and sowing.
“Nowadays, electro-fishing is punished during the fishing ban, and even the capture and killing of a certain number of sparrows is punishable. Earthworms are no less important to the ecology than fish and sparrows, and a strict ban on electro-fishing for earthworms is an important measure to protect the ecology of farmland. The ecology of farmland is well maintained, in order to leave a more fertile land for future generations!” Lao Liu said with a sigh.
Procuratorial supervision to promote the relevant departments to strictly investigate the electric fishing earthworms
After a preliminary investigation, Xu Guijuan reported the situation to the hospital. in April, the Lianshui County Procuratorate decided to carry out protection of earthworms in the form of public interest litigation.
The first thing that came to the prosecutor’s mind was to file a civil public interest lawsuit, but because earthworms are numerous and reproduce quickly, the laws and regulations of China, such as the Wildlife Protection Law and the Implementing Regulations on the Protection of Terrestrial Wildlife, do not include wild earthworm resources as objects of protection. The State Council also did not include earthworms among the terrestrial wildlife with important ecological, scientific and social values. Therefore, the idea of filing a civil public interest lawsuit directly against the person who electrocaught the earthworm for damages is currently not justified by law.
Xu Guijuan decided to find another way to prohibit the act of electrofishing earthworms by carrying out administrative public interest litigation to promote administrative punishment. “According to the provisions of the agricultural law requiring the protection of natural resources, from the perspective of protecting animal diversity, especially considering the important role of animals to the ecological environment, the protection of earthworms is in line with the legal requirements, and also responds to the ecological protection needs. Moreover, the use of electric shock devices in the fields is dangerous for pedestrians working in the fields or even passing by, and should also be punished in accordance with the Public Security Management Punishment Law and other laws and regulations.”
From April 13 to 15, the Lianshui County Procuratorate issued pre-litigation suggestions to five local administrative supervisory departments, suggesting that they should strengthen their inspections and combat the act of electrofishing for earthworms by discouraging and confiscating tools, which was highly valued by the local administrative organs. At the same time, the Lianshui County Procuratorate wrote a report to reflect the situation to the higher procuratorial organs, the local people’s congress and the CPPCC.
On May 12, the government of Lianshui County issued a special announcement to prohibit any unit or individual from illegally capturing, acquiring or processing wild earthworms, and violators will be investigated and punished by the relevant administrative organs according to law, and if they constitute a crime, they will be held criminally responsible according to law.
After learning about the case, Huai’an City Procuratorate immediately organized special activities to carry out investigations in the city. At present, Huai’an City Huaiyin District Procuratorate has issued procuratorial recommendations to relevant units, suggesting that local administrative organs should strengthen management and strictly investigate the illegal capture, acquisition and processing of wild earthworms.
A few days ago, Xu Guijuan and her colleagues went back to Chen Shi Town, where the breeze was brushing the golden ears of wheat in the field. “These two days the wheat can be harvested. During this period of time, the Public Security Bureau and the Agricultural Bureau took turns to check, the last month or so basically no one comes to catch earthworms, the Procuratorate really did a great thing for our grain farmers.” Looking at the more than 500 mu of wheat that will be harvested soon, Lao Liu happily praised the prosecutor.
For the electric earthworm industry chain, in 2020, Guangdong Province amended the province’s wildlife protection management regulations, requiring that “other terrestrial wildlife other than those protected under the preceding paragraph, managed in accordance with the provisions of these regulations,” and expressly prohibit the use of electric shock, electronic trapping devices to hunt wildlife, while providing that any unit and Individuals shall not manufacture and sell the hunting and trapping tools specified in the preceding paragraph.
In July 2020, the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation filed a lawsuit with the Zhuhai Intermediate Court in Guangdong Province, filing a public interest lawsuit against three companies selling “electric earthworm machines. In August 2021, the Zhuhai Intermediate Court issued a first instance verdict, ruling that the three sellers of “electric earthworm machines” should pay damages and publish an apology in the national media. In February this year, the Guangdong Provincial High Court issued a final judgment rejecting the appeal and upholding the original judgment.
(Source: Procuratorial Daily Author: Guan Ying, Wang Yan)
Soil Electrified to Catch Earthworms: A Gold Rush and Ecological Extermination Crisis
World Journal 世界新聞網
China News Team / Collation 2022-06-14 02:00 ET
The fishing method has been harming the ocean for years, and now a group of people are bringing this extinct fishing into the soil for huge profits. They are frantically panning the soil for gold with large modern machinery, ignoring the warning signs from the ecosystem.
On February 27, 2022, the first case of “electric captured earthworms” brought by China Green Development Council was sentenced by the Guangdong High Court in the second trial. Three companies were ordered to pay compensation of nearly 2 million yuan (RMB) for the loss of ecological environment because they sold electric earthworm machines for buyers to hunt earthworms by electric shock. To date, however, the “electric earthworm” business has not only not subsided, but has become even more popular, and has even formed a complete industrial chain, endangering the soil ecology to a great extent.
Buy a worm machine and become a boss at home
“Buy a worm catching equipment, the couple can be the boss at home. A month of work at home is better than years of work! Elephant News reported that many businesses promoting the capture of wild earthworms and the “recycling of dried earthworms” can be found on a social media platform. In the promotional video, users only need to insert the two poles of the battery into the soil, turn on the switch, and an earthworm that has twisted its body after the electric shock will come out of the soil and flip around on the ground for people to pick up.
“The report quoted Sun Zhenjun, a professor at the Department of Ecology, School of Resources and Environment, China Agricultural University, as saying that repeated electric shocks not only hurt earthworms, but also other organisms in the soil. Sun Zhenjun, a professor of ecology at the School of Resources and Environment of China Agricultural University, was quoted as saying that earthworms have a certain ability to recover themselves, but repeated electric shocks will reduce the number of earthworms again without recovery, and the reduction of earthworms will cause the soil environment to become dysfunctional, resulting in irreversible consequences for the ecological environment.
Electrifying the earth to catch ten pounds a day
However, as a common animal, earthworms are not included in the “List of National Key Wild Animals” and “List of Terrestrial Wild Animals of Ecological, Scientific and Social Importance“, which made it impossible to prohibit the hunting of wild earthworms in a “closed-door” manner. It was not until the first case of “electric earthworm” brought by the Green Council of China won the case that there was a basis for punishment, and the “electric earthworm” industry gradually became known to the public.
“I can electro-capture ten pounds of wild earthworms a day,” said Wang, a native of Huai’an, Anhui province, picking up earthworms that had just emerged from the ground. A simple set of electric earthworm equipment and an electric battery are placed on the tricycle next to him. “The two needles connected to the battery are inserted into the ground, and the earthworms will come up after a while. The company’s main business is to promote the development of the company. He complained that more people were electrifying earthworms than before, and that only a few earthworms were electro-captured. Still he was able to sell a little over 100 yuan a day, which was fine.
On social media platforms, if you search for “electric earthworm” or “earthworm catching”, you can find many people like Wang Da Ye who are electrifying earthworms in the fields. In the short video, they show the earthworms from the ground and catch them one by one into the bucket. Most of the people electric earthworms for the purpose of making money, only need to have an electric earthworm equipment, then you can start. After the earthworms are processed, they are sold to people who specialize in collecting earthworms.
From the southern Guangdong Province to the northern provinces of Shandong and Hebei, there are practitioners who are active in cities, towns and villages. Xiao Liu in Nanping, Fujian Province, saw more and more people around him making money by electro-fishing wild earthworms, so he also bought an electric earthworm equipment and started to catch earthworms in green belts and at the edge of rice fields. “He said, “We must wait for most of the earthworms to drill out before we can catch them, otherwise they are easily scared and will not come out when they drill back into the soil.
In just two or three minutes, Liu had already caught more than a dozen wild earthworms. Waiting for 2 minutes, if no new earthworms are drilled, Liu will pull out a steel needle and insert it into the ground again in a different place.
Capture to Acquisition A Dragon Industry
As a common invertebrate, earthworms have been used medicinally since ancient times in China because they contain dilaudin, many amino acids, and vitamins. Driven by the related interests, some companies have even developed a “one-stop” operation model from production to recycling to recover wild earthworms.
A salesperson of an agricultural technology company in Wuhan, Xiao Jing, revealed that the company cooperates directly with pharmaceutical companies and recovers the dried wild earthworms on a long-term basis.
According to the company’s marketing video, the process of making wild dried earthworms is not complicated. First, the earthworms are electro-captured with a 地龍儀”earth dragon device” and put in a bucket. Afterwards, the live earthworms are put into an “open-belly slaughter machine” and cleaned from the sediment and impurities inside the earthworms. Finally, the earthworms are simply dried in the sun and then recycled and sold for money. The price for recycling varies from $160/kg to $420/kg depending on the length of the earthworm.
Xiao Jing said that the company has four different models of “earthworm machines” with a maximum power coverage of 50 square meters and a depth of 50 centimeters, which can catch more than 70 pounds a day and sell more than a thousand. If you use the machine to make dried earthworms, you need to pay a deposit of 3,980 to 6,980 yuan depending on the size of the model. If the recovered dried earthworms exceed 25 kilograms, the deposit can be returned in full, which is “equal to zero cost earthworm production”.
Is earthworm farming worthless? Pharmaceutical companies specify wild earthworms
The main reason for the “electric earthworm” industry is that many people disregard the environment, ecology and their own safety, especially since the earthworms are mostly bought by pharmaceutical companies for making medicine, and some of them are used as bait for fishing or as special feed for two reptiles, as well as for food. It is generally believed that farmed earthworms are not as effective as wild ones, and this has contributed to the extermination of wild earthworms. Scholars have called for further legal protection of wild earthworms.
Scholars call for legislation to stop hunting and killing
“In fact, all of these uses can be replaced by using artificially cultured earthworms instead of specifically catching wild earthworms.” Wu Yu (a pseudonym), a volunteer for ecological protection, said that there are many professional earthworm farmers who simply dig out earthworms from the soil and do not need to use electroshock methods. There is no difference in the nature of artificially raised earthworms and wild earthworms, but the price of wild earthworms is higher than that of raised earthworms at buyers.
However, Xiao Jing, a salesperson of an agricultural technology company in Wuhan, said that the company’s purpose of acquiring earthworms is to make medicine, so it only acquires wild earthworms, and “cultured earthworms have no medicinal value and are generally used as feed for chickens and ducks, which we do not receive.
After scientific analysis, we found that the active ingredients in wild earthworms are not necessarily better than those in cultured ones,” said Sun Zhenjun, a professor in the Department of Ecology, School of Resources and Environment, China Agricultural University, as quoted by Elephant News.
Sun Zhenjun led a team to test the whole genome of wild earthworms in 2019 and found that there was no difference between them and the cultured earthworms of “Da Ping No. 2,” and that “many pharmaceutical companies are now using active substances extracted from cultured earthworms for drug production.
The lawyer who represented Green Council of China in the lawsuit against the “electric earthworm”, Xinhui Xiong, said that earthworms are wild animals that are vital to the soil ecosystem. “Although there are no laws or administrative regulations governing the use of electric earthworm machines, local governments have enacted local regulations,” said Xinhui, adding that, for example, the Guangdong Wildlife Protection Management Ordinance, which was amended in March 2020, prohibits the use or manufacture of electric shocks and other tools to hunt wild animals.
Wild earthworms make a significant contribution to the environment
The contribution of wild earthworms to the ecological environment is very meaningful, said Sun Zhenjun. Earthworms can digest and decompose organic substances that plants cannot absorb, and then excrete substances that are beneficial to plant growth to provide nutrients to the soil, which helps the fields regain their fertility. The loss of earthworms in the soil will result in less permeability and less water penetration, which in time will lead to clumping and a decrease in the fertility of the soil.
For the protection of wild earthworms, Sun Zhenjun hopes that there will be more legal provisions to protect them. “This will be a great deterrent to some hunters who have no awareness of protecting wild earthworms, and will protect them from being hunted at the root.
“As a resource in traditional Chinese medicine, we need to think not only about how to protect earthworms, but also about how to multiply them. Sun Zhenjun said that by protecting some of the non-farm areas and providing earthworms with the nutrients they need to grow, the earthworms can multiply without leaving the soil, thus creating a new economic model.
一条野生蚯蚓的利益链
字体： 小 中 大
晾晒地龙干的现场。威宁县检察院供图
制作地龙干的现场。威宁县检察院供图
对蚯蚓宣告死期，是很容易的事，无论是一只，还是一群。
用一种叫“地龙仪”的设备捕捉蚯蚓，“一个电瓶，两根线子，插在地上，蚯蚓马上爬出来了，看着让人头皮发麻。”在有些地方，捉五六斤蚯蚓只需要20分钟，而一块充满电的电瓶能连续工作5个小时。在尚未被“电”过的土地上，一天电两三百斤也不在话下。
在自然界，蚯蚓生长了数亿年。原本，影响它们生长的最重要因素是温度与降水，现在，人类用科技横插一脚。
捕捉到的蚯蚓，开肚，冲净，晒干，然后被卖到中药材市场。在那里，它被称为地龙。它是一味被收录在《中国药典》的中药，有“清热定惊，通络，平喘，利尿”的功用。
尽管地龙作为中药材已有近两千年的历史，但野生蚯蚓的捉捕从未像近些年来这般疯狂。经济利益的驱使下，成百上千吨蚯蚓从土地里被电出来，人们捡走它们，晾晒成干。
电捕蚯蚓的人说，中国越来越多的心脑血管疾病患者需要它。在保护生态与保护健康同样备受关注的当下中国，野生蚯蚓被推至舆论焦点。环保组织、地方检察院开始起诉售卖地龙仪的商家、电蚯蚓的人、收蚯蚓干的老板，破坏生态与土壤；而在另一边，各地的药材市场，地龙被高价出售给制药公司、医院、药房，最终进入人的身体。
“机器一响，黄金万两”
在北方，夏季并不是一个适合捉蚯蚓的季节。这一点，河南商丘农妇刘玉莲心知肚明。她接触“蚯蚓产业”20余年，最近，一个朋友告诉她，“在家满处跑都找不着蚯蚓”。
这个时候，高温，少雨，土地常被晒得裂开口子，蚯蚓钻得更深。即便如此，仍有一些人带着地龙仪，在田间地头寻找它们。怕光喜暗的蚯蚓昼伏夜出，这群捉蚯蚓的人便昼伏夜出，带着灯，提着桶，穿着胶鞋，在夜幕降临后出现在野外。
有时，他们也“夜伏昼出”，通常在开春之后。滋滋作响的地龙仪，会出现在农田、菜地、公园、干枯的河道，以及山林。不少人第一次见到用如此“现代化”的技术来抓蚯蚓时，驻足围观，有人说，站在一旁能感觉到脚被电得麻麻的。
捉蚯蚓的人并不只是出现在河南，在安徽宿州、江苏徐州，在两广地区的山地丘陵、云贵川的山野森林、海南的橡胶地，都有他们的身影。
他们是循着蚯蚓留在地表的粪便，才寻觅到它们的踪迹的。140余年前，达尔文也曾观察过蚯蚓排便时的情景，最终写出《腐殖土与蚯蚓》，并称颂，“蚯蚓是地球上最有价值的动物，有蚯蚓才有沃土。”
但捉蚯蚓的人找到蚯蚓粪便时，想到的是钱。
根据记者从多家蚯蚓收购商处了解的情况来看，目前，干蚯蚓价格在90-120元/斤，蚯蚓品种、成品质量不同，价格不一。在蚯蚓资源丰富的地区，一个农民靠“地龙仪”一天能够捉到上百斤湿蚯蚓，最终10斤湿蚯蚓，可以晾晒1斤干蚯蚓。
尽管农民们都知道，蚯蚓的存在有益于土壤，但对很多农村人而言，很少有挣钱的办法比电蚯蚓来得更快、更轻松。
20多年前，刘玉莲第一次接触“蚯蚓产业”时，捕捉是靠锄头挖，开肚用刮胡刀片，再晾晒在地板上，蚯蚓干大约20元/公斤。“（湿蚯蚓）才3毛钱1斤，一天刨40斤才挣10几元。”刘玉莲说，“那时间（做这行的）少。”
20年来，地龙的价格翻了10倍。2021年，全开广地龙（一种地龙收购行业术语，根据加工情况，地龙可分为全开、半开、统货等——记者注）市场价一度涨至275元/公斤。
她告诉记者，她所在的村子，不少村民是最近两三年才开始接触“蚯蚓产业”。在她看来，这源于药材市场上野生地龙的需求与价格不断走高。地龙仪的出现也使得蚯蚓捕捉更加高效。除此之外，抖音、快手等短视频平台的出现则也让更多人接触到这个“一本万利”的行业。
刘玉莲售卖地龙仪，也回收蚯蚓干，她说，她旺季一天能收1000斤蚯蚓干货。就在前不久，有山东菏泽的人前来实地考察，她向客户展示了“秒出蚯蚓”的机器，而她收到的货来自全国各地，包括四川、云南等。
“机器一响，黄金万两”“打工打工，两手空空，不如在家，蚯蚓加工。”那些收蚯蚓的商人，在网络上打出极具吸引力的口号。他们视“蚯蚓产业”为新的“农村致富路”，称蚯蚓是“农村土地里的软黄金”。
河南许昌的年轻人万泉是2019年春天从网络上注意到“蚯蚓产业”的，那时1斤蚯蚓干能卖80多元。
那时，捕蚯蚓已有一套相当成熟的产业链。此前做生意赔了钱的万泉对这个“创业项目”有疑虑，直到那年夏天，他到商丘虞城亲眼见识了当地发达的“产业链”。
万泉告诉中青报·中青网记者，带他创业的老板就在虞城，最初收蚯蚓时，骑着“二八式”自行车，如今，开着“大金杯”汽车，在村子里盖了一栋像模像样的大别墅，开起了超市。而他们村子围着蚯蚓挣钱的人“多得要命”。
万泉花800元从虞城带回一套设备，开始“创业”。“创业”的起点是城郊一条干枯的河道。如今，万泉的“蚯蚓加工厂”已经开到了贵州威宁、江苏徐州，每次外出回老家时，他都会去那条“创业河”看看。
他听说，在2016年左右，河南漯河刚开始有人做“蚯蚓”的生意时，有农村的老人连买地龙仪的钱也不愿意花，“全部拿锄头去挖，把那河坝子都挖塌了。”
裁判文书网上的判例显示，2020年，在江苏沛县，一名年轻男子在家门口测试购买的蚯蚓捕捉机时，触电身亡，留下年近七旬的父母、30岁出头的妻子和两个年幼的女儿。也有媒体报道，2022年，在江苏如皋，一个70多岁的村民自制地龙仪捕捉蚯蚓时触电身亡。
尽管如此，在这个圈子里，流传更多的是关于“致富梦”的故事。
“（想做）这个玩意儿就是得货多。”万泉告诉记者，他知道，去年在四川小凉山，有一个老板3个月出了200吨干品。他说，靠蚯蚓发家致富的“不是多，是太多了”。
近10年需求整体上行
没有资料显示，谁发明了地龙仪，但在中国，生产与销售它的商家大有人在。
多年来，用于捕捉蚯蚓的地龙仪经不同厂家的改造，已升级换代数次；市场上出现了用于蚯蚓保鲜的地龙止损液；有厂家生产专门用于剖开蚯蚓的“开肚机”、晾晒蚯蚓的铁丝网。
一家名为“中山市久驰电器有限公司”的企业在2017年、2018年申请注册了“地龙仪”“蚯蚓机”的商标，而位于中山市的另一家生产地龙仪的企业，以“地龙仪”为通用名称为由，请求予以“争议商标无效宣告”，但最终“争议商标予以维持”。在“国家知识产权局”的专利检索系统中，搜索“地龙仪”，有多项相关发明专利，其中最早的一项发明专利申请于2016年5月23日。
实际上，地龙仪或蚯蚓机的出现，远早于2016年。
据一位广西玉林的蚯蚓养殖户回忆，当地在2005年左右开始出现使用车用“水电瓶”电蚯蚓的现象。从事蚯蚓养殖31年的贾立明记得，他注意到“电蚯蚓机器”的出现是在十多年前。
2014年，有媒体报道称，在海南省琼海市、安定县存在用“地龙机”电捕野生蚯蚓售卖的情况，“2012年、2013年最高涨到150元/公斤”。从事蚯蚓研究30余年的中国农业大学生态系教授孙振钧，也是在2013年左右才注意到电蚯蚓机的出现。
这套设备的生产制造并不复杂。刘玉莲告诉记者，她自家有生产并销售电蚯蚓机器、开肚机。
记者通过“企查查”检索发现，经营范围中包括“蚯蚓机”的企业在河南有15家，其中13家集中在虞城县界沟镇，成立于2019年至2020年两年间，他们有的同时销售“蚯蚓开肚机”“锂电池”，有的还收购中药材。仅在界沟镇刘沿村小刘沿，就有6家与“蚯蚓产业”相关的个体工商户。
那些用电捕捉来的野生蚯蚓，需要先用“地锅灰”拌匀，再一条一条放入“开肚机”。开肚之后的蚯蚓，得用水冲洗干净腹内泥沙。而后，将其一条条摊平，晾晒在铁丝网或竹竿上。“晒干跟那个小鱼干是一模一样的味道。”
在一些大型加工点，会出现10余名被雇来的农妇，同时为蚯蚓开肚的景象。而成千上万条蚯蚓的开肚与晾晒，是一项耗费时间的工作。一个在农村的姑娘算过，她电了20斤蚯蚓，花了4个小时才摆完。
蚯蚓巨大的腥味时常招来满院苍蝇，这并未影响许多农民趋之若鹜。在刘沿村，有的村民将蚯蚓干的收购点设在村委会对面的马路边，也有人带着从焦作赶来考察的客户在界沟镇派出所刘沿警务室前的水沟边测试“地龙仪”。
商丘虞城当地成熟的蚯蚓加工产业，吸引着来自全国各地的、想从土里“掘金”的人。商丘毗邻亳州，而虞城县界沟镇位于两市交界处，距离亳州市区的直线距离仅20余公里。安徽亳州有“中华药都”之称，这里拥有“全球最大的中药材交易市场”。
一位在安徽亳州从事中药材批发生意的陈姓老板告诉记者，他收来的地龙“基本上都是野生的”，产地包括广西、四川、安徽、河南。
这些地龙大多进入制药企业。“截至2021年，中成药企业需求量占比57.56%，中药饮片企业需求量约28.52%，出口、保健品和其他占比约13.92%。”天地云图中药大数据平台首席数据分析师贾海彬告诉中青报·中青网记者，包含地龙这味中药材的上市中成药就有40种，在中成药中，地龙需求排名前三的产品包括，苏黄止咳胶囊、脑心通胶囊、乳块消片。
该平台提供的数据还显示，地龙需求量排名第一的企业是陕西一家制药公司，该公司的不少产品集中在心脑血管用药领域，其中“脑心通胶囊”便是该公司的产品，该公司官网信息显示：此药为“心脑血管疾病的基础用药”。
6月23日发布的《中国心血管健康与疾病报告2021》显示，我国每5例死亡病例中就有两例死于心血管病。报告还显示，目前，我国心血管患病率处于持续上升阶段，推算我国心血管现患病人数为3.3亿。在全球范围内，心血管病都被视为“头号杀手”。
贾海彬告诉记者，“老龄化加剧，心脑血管用药需求增长，近10年整体保持（地龙）需求上行。”确切的数据是，地龙的药用市场需求量从2010年的400吨上涨至2020年的675吨。
“野外捕捉占比约70%”
“（地龙用量）最近逐年在增加。”安徽亳州一家中药饮片公司的相关负责人告诉记者，与10年前相比，地龙的使用量增幅有百分之七八十。而该公司主要生产地龙中药饮片与地龙配方颗粒，“主要是去到医院、药房”。
上述公司相关负责人告诉记者，他所在的公司主要使用广地龙，“养殖的基本上没有”。“因为药典中规定了，只有那4个品种。”
《中国药典》2020年版中作为药材的“地龙”，指的是钜蚓科动物参环毛蚓、通俗环毛蚓、威廉环毛蚓、栉盲环毛蚓4种蚯蚓的干燥体。前一种习称“广地龙”，后三种习称“沪地龙”。而人工养殖的蚯蚓，主要是“大平二号”。这是人工选育种，而大平二号蚯蚓目前尚不允许入中药，因为该品种的蚯蚓并未被列入《中国药典》中药材“地龙”的使用范围。这种被广泛养殖蚯蚓“90%应该在垂钓行业”。
中国农业大学资源与环境学院生态系教授孙振钧告诉记者，广地龙主产于广东、广西、海南等地，沪地龙主产于上海、浙江、河南等地。
“因为《中国药典》里头都有非常明确的规定。2000年之前，只有1种，就叫广地龙，学名参环毛蚓，后来（这种地龙）越来越少。”孙振钧说，“2000年，《中国药典》又加了三种沪地龙，它比广地龙的分布稍微宽一点儿。”
10多年来，尽管中药材市场上的地龙需求量巨大，但广地龙、沪地龙并未能实现大规模养殖。
“技术上没突破，因为它野性太强。”孙振钧说，在海南，他们通过调查广地龙的资源分布情况，找到了它在海南的主要分布区域，并尝试将原地环境保护起来，促使广地龙生态增殖。
在广西，电捕蚯蚓的人在减少，养殖广地龙的人在增多。31岁的陆放2020年开始养殖广地龙，他有7亩地，养着收购来的野生广地龙，他还在慢慢熟悉它们的生活习性，“需要有经验”，“细心，天又好的话，（一亩地纯利润）能到1万元至1.5万元。”
但陆放告诉记者，如今有不少广地龙养殖户，一边养，一边也收野生的，“赚快钱。”这种现象在河南虞城同样存在。一家“地龙养殖专业合作社”负责人告诉记者，她这里“野生的、养殖的（蚯蚓）都有”，她一边养着“自己培养”的蚯蚓，一边到各地收蚯蚓干。
“它的繁殖速率没有办法跟大平二号相比。”孙振钧说，“从现代药用化学的分析来看吧，（二者）差异不大。”
贾立明也告诉中青报·中青网记者，在蛋白质含量，有效成分含量等方面，“人工养殖的蚯蚓不比野生蚯蚓差”。
人工养殖大平二号蚯蚓干燥体市场价在60元-80元/公斤，要比野生蚯蚓便宜，但很多厂家不敢使用。“正规厂家（货源）都非常正规。如果不正规会犯法。”贾立明说。
但从该品种蚯蚓中提取的一种蚓激酶，可用于西药。一种用于缺血性脑血管疾病的西药——蚓激酶肠溶胶囊（国药准字H20044080）便是从人工养殖的赤子爱胜蚯蚓（即“大平二号”蚯蚓）中提取的一组蛋白水解酶。
在贾立明看来，人工养殖的蚯蚓是对野生蚯蚓最大的保护。“因为它也不属于野生动物，它不破坏生态环境。”
“对蚯蚓的利用远远不是目前现有的一些报道所说的那样，中药在利用，西药在利用。保健品、化妆品、食品都在用。”一位长期从事自然保护的专家告诉记者，“通过人工饲养繁殖，是可以起到保护野外蚯蚓的。”“要用发展的问题解决保护的问题。”
但实际上，从中药材市场上地龙的来源看，“养殖、半养殖（野外捕捉幼体育肥）占比约30%，野外捕捉占比约70%。” 贾海彬告诉中青报·中青网记者，在广地龙的传统产区广东、广西，由于近年来对蚯蚓资源的过度捕捉，“产量在一年年下降，往年一个主产镇多的时候有上千人抓地龙，现在也只有数十人，收购点也不断减少。”
贾立明觉得，可以尝试将人工养殖的“大平二号”蚯蚓，列入《中国药典》，纳入中药材目录，打破野生蚯蚓过渡捕捞造成的恶性循环，包括土壤与生态的破坏。孙振钧也支持将它列入药典。
“转移阵地”
多年来，在广西玉林，电蚯蚓做药材“是比较普遍的一个现象”，但现在“电的少了”。
广地龙养殖户陆放告诉记者，小时候，蚯蚓几毛钱一斤，村子里有人用茶饼兑水，倒在蚯蚓多的地方，“过一段时间它就会爬上来，就会晕。”
到2005年至2008年间，当地人开始用“水电瓶”电蚯蚓。“疯狂地电，那时候那些人一年都能创造十万元、二十万元的利润。”陆放说，“一直持持续到2017年左右吧，然后就变少了。”
但市场对于地龙的需求量并未减少，地龙价格还在一路走高，一些人开始“转移阵地”。
“一些常年收购的加工户这两年已跑到四川、云南、贵州去开发新产区，新产区的收购量还是可以。”贾海彬告诉记者，安徽、河南、湖南等省的部分地区，也成为地龙的新产区。
从近年来地龙产地供应商的数量来看，排名在前10位是贵州、广东、浙江、云南、湖南、湖北、江西、河北、江苏、河南。
2021年8月，万泉将蚯蚓加工厂开到了贵州省毕节市威宁县雪山镇。
“因为那边环境比较好。山地比较多。”万泉说，他在威宁见过最长的蚯蚓有1米多长。于是，他带着10台地龙仪到威宁，将设备免费发放给当地农民，农民到山上捉到野生蚯蚓，再卖给他。他还在当地租下民房，雇工给蚯蚓开肚、清洗、晾晒。
“（威宁）那边一直都能干到过年呢，不像北方季节性强。”万泉告诉记者。
在威宁县，检察官李爱此前从未见过如此大规模的对野生蚯蚓的掠捕。
李爱告诉中青报·中青网记者，从2021年七八月开始，陆续有河南、安徽、四川等地的地龙收购商带着地龙仪来威宁，每到一个地方先租老百姓的民房，再把机器发出去。
李爱说，去年11月，有护林员、村民向林业局、公安局等部门反映有“有人在山上打蚯蚓”。威宁县检察院几乎在同一时间了解到这一情况，并决定研究“怎么样依法来处理这样的情况”，最终他们决定“拯救蚯蚓”，对这个产业链条上的人提起“公益诉讼”。
“大概有七八个镇有这个情况。”李爱告诉记者，在其中一个镇，多的时候，有六七个老板收购加工野生蚯蚓。
加工点负责开肚、晾晒的临时工多是五六十岁的农村妇女，而外出电蚯蚓的人多是留在村子里的四五十岁的人，男女都有，年轻人较少。“也有的人之前在外面打工，听到老家有这个生意可以做，回来专门搞这个。”李爱说。
从一个外地收购商的发货记录上，李爱了解到，该收购商从3月9日到5月31日，从威宁发出1804公斤蚯蚓干品。从一个本地电蚯蚓的农民的收款记录查到，从3月到6月，“他卖出去的货价值已经到4万元左右”。
过去的两个月，李爱一直为公益诉讼的事奔走山野，但他发现，“拯救蚯蚓”困难重重。
“他们没有法律意识，觉得那个东西反正地下全都是，打了好像也不会影响什么，反正不是在自家地里打，但赚取的利益是个人的。”李爱说，“我们下去调查过程中，很多老百姓直接说，‘国家没有法律规定，你们不能禁止我们来搞这个东西’。”
李爱告诉记者，“其实我们国家的法律是有规定的，但是是过于原则性的规定。”
在准备公益诉讼起始阶段，他们就翻遍了《野生动物保护法》《环境保护法》《农业法》《土地管理法》等，“没有找到可以对应（蚯蚓）使用的具体的规定，蚯蚓也不在三有动物名录。”
他们又邀请公安局、环保局、林业局、农业农村局，开研讨会，想听一听行政机关的意见。“争议很大，最终没有达成共识。”李爱告诉记者，“各个部门都说，这个东西其他地方没有处理过，是罚款、拘留，还是没收工具？”
等检察院进入“调查取证阶段”，李爱发现，“调查对象抵触情绪很大。很多人不愿意配合。”
有时，电蚯蚓的人见到他们，拎着设备就往山上走，根据公益诉讼办案规则他们也没办法采取强制措施。“毕竟他们也是受人指使。”李爱说，有时他们去寻找加工点的收购商，收购商常避而不见，见了还会挨骂，有的甚至连夜将场子搬到其他地方去。
经过两个月复杂的调查取证，威宁县检察院对电击、收购、加工蚯蚓已立案民事公益诉讼案件6件。但在法律适用、生态环境损害量化上，李爱担心，无法与法官达成统一意见。此前，全国检察机关并没有提起蚯蚓保护方面的民事公益诉讼案件的先例。
2020年，有环保组织对广东省中山市3家电蚯蚓机生产企业提起公益诉讼。广东省珠海市中级法院一审判决认为，蚯蚓属在土壤生态系统中具有重要地位的野生动物，人类对其进行经济利用的手段必须在合理范围之内。荣者光电等三家公司出售电蚯蚓机，使购买者以电击的方式猎捕蚯蚓，不利于蚯蚓和土壤生态环境的可持续利用。
这个被媒体称为“电蚯蚓机第一案”的公益诉讼案件最终打到了广东省高级人民法院。而高院驳回3家企业的上诉，并维持了一审判决。
除了没有检察机关提起诉讼的先例外，李爱的另一个担忧是，由于地龙涉及到中药产业，会不会对司法机关推动蚯蚓保护产生影响。但他还是希望，“人们在利用自然资源的时候，要在利用与保护之间找到一个平衡点。”
“一种恶性的循环”
孙振钧担忧的，是蚯蚓的减少给土地带来的影响。
“如果大家都这么弄的话，跟农田的质量就有关系了。农田都没有蚯蚓了，没有好的土地怎么能生产粮食出来？”孙振钧说，其次涉及到生物多样性的问题。“不仅对这个蚯蚓有影响，对其他的土壤生物，土壤线虫、土壤螨类，还有蜘蛛等。”
“实际上蚯蚓在生态系统里面作用是非常重要的。”一位长期从事自然环保保护的专家告诉记者，“（电蚯蚓）对生态系统也是有破坏的。虽然它们不是受保护的物种，不是珍贵濒危物种，但是这是一个对生物多样性保护的问题。”
此前，不少媒体在报道电蚯蚓现象时，将这种行为描述为“灭绝式捕杀”。
“捕杀地龙，是不是灭绝式的，这个需要进一步探讨。”上述自然保护专家表示，在他看来，蚯蚓繁殖力极强，生存范围又广，“它不像大熊猫数量是有限的”。“现在还谈不上是‘灭绝式捕杀’，农药、化肥（对蚯蚓）造成的伤害可能在地域范围上会更广一些。”
但在这位专家看来，这种（捕杀）是存在问题的。
“土壤出了问题，是整个我们的土地利用方式出了问题。电蚯蚓只是其中问题之一，冰山一角。”那位长期从事自然环境保护的专家告诉中青报·中青网记者，蚯蚓也就是受害者。
孙振钧也认为，蚯蚓的减少是事实，而原因是多方面的。首先是，农药、化肥、除草剂等大量使用，土壤面临的污染不断地加剧，使得野生蚯蚓种群降低；其次是中药对地龙的需求越来越大；再者是地龙仪的出现，使蚯蚓的种群更少了。
“现在是一种恶性的循环。”孙振钧说。
“我们农业专家早就提倡要休耕，要轮作。”该专家说，“我们对土壤是掠夺式的利用。其实不只是说电蚯蚓这一块儿，更可怕的是除草剂，使土壤板结。”
而使用野生蚯蚓，会带来另一个问题：中药中部分地龙重金属超标。
根据各省食品药品监督管理局发布的通告，多年来，在药品抽检中，常出现“地龙”抽检不合格的情况，其中不合格项目包括“重金属”。
四川食药监局在2018年的抽检中发现，四川涪丰药业有限公司销往威远县界牌镇卫生院的地龙“杂质、酸不溶性灰分、总灰分、重金属”不合格。2015年，亳州市国苑中药材饮片有限公司销往阳谷县张秋中心卫生院的一批地龙被检测发现“不符合规定”，不符合项目也包括重金属。
“实际上各部门都有保护生活多样性责任和义务，但我们往往认为保护生物多样性只是保护主管部门的事，这是片面的。”那位自然保护专家认为，“利用部门要主动承担起可持续利用和保护资源的责任。中药部门如果不提前考虑，就是把中药自己的路堵死了。”
万泉也听到了一些关于“禁止电捕蚯蚓”的风声，但是在许多地方，“大家偷着做的还是挺多的”。
2021年，万泉在威宁待了一个月，将加工点交给自己的哥哥，自己去了开在江苏徐州的蚯蚓加工点。今年下半年，万泉打算去陕西，“因为陕西是去年刚加入的新货源地”。万泉的哥哥则在威宁，继续回收蚯蚓，加工晾晒成干。
他也在做另一手打算：明年准备开蚯蚓养殖场。“如果哪一天国家只要说，蚯蚓都不要再电了，我立马就收手。”万泉说，“你不能电，你得想后路啊，因为它本来就是个紧俏产品。”
（文中刘玉莲、万泉、陆放均为化名）（记者 李强）
蚯蚓是土壤可持续利用的关键物种，有“了不起的地下工作者”之称。但不知从何时起，野生蚯蚓成为一些不法分子眼中的“唐僧肉”，他们把利用专门的仪器从土壤里抓蚯蚓当作“致富之路”。
在一些电商平台上搜索“电捕蚯蚓神器”，会出现近60个品牌上千种商品，有的网店甚至打出可以“日抓600斤蚯蚓”的广告。在这些抓蚯蚓的人眼中，只有“今天我抓了多少蚯蚓、能卖多少钱”，他们很少想到这样的行为会对生态环境造成严重破坏。
今年4月，江苏省涟水县检察院检察官在农业保护公益诉讼例行巡查中，挖出这条产供销“一条龙”的电捕蚯蚓产业链，以及产业链背后给土地造成的不能承受之痛。
丰厚利润引来众多电捕蚯蚓者
“那天我们刚走到田边，就发现有人拿着一个长方形的仪器放在田里。过了一会儿，就看到蚯蚓从地底下钻出来……”涟水县检察院第五检察部检察官徐贵娟清晰地记得今年4月8日在该县陈师镇田边看到的情景，“我当时很奇怪，这是什么机器？弄这么多蚯蚓准备做什么用？”
涟水县是农业大县。自2021年起，涟水县检察院把农业保护作为公益诉讼的工作重点。徐贵娟和她的同事们差不多每周都会抽空到基层乡镇巡查。直觉告诉她，这个仪器十分可疑。
徐贵娟立刻找附近的村民了解情况，这才得知这种仪器叫“地龙仪”，是专门用来抓蚯蚓的。只要把仪器上的导电针插到地里，把开关打开，仪器瞬间就能对附近的土地释放高压电。在电流的刺激下，地里的蚯蚓呼吸困难，便会争先恐后地钻出地面。正常情况下，一个成年人使用“地龙仪”每天能轻松抓获数百斤蚯蚓。
蚯蚓主治伤寒热结、小便不通、风热头痛等，是制作中药“地龙干”和西药“蚯激酶”的主要来源。同时，蚯蚓的蛋白质含量较高。这些被抓获的蚯蚓要么被送到非法加工点制成蚯蚓干，再出售给一些制药厂家；要么被收购后卖给饲料厂，制作成养殖用的高营养饲料。“据调查，‘地龙干’在上海、广东等地每公斤能卖300多元。由于蚯蚓养殖无法满足市场的巨大需求，收购蚯蚓的价格还在逐年上涨。”徐贵娟告诉记者。
由于利润丰厚，一些人便想到了野生蚯蚓。电捕蚯蚓成了生财之道，由此也衍生出了一系列的产品和“服务”——
打开网购平台搜索“地龙仪”“电蚯蚓”等关键词，会出现近60个品牌上千种产品。这些产品的价格从100元至500多元不等，重量基本都在3公斤左右，操作简单。
有了便利的工具，当然还得有其他收购、加工的“保障”。有人在乡镇设立起非法加工点，专门收购新鲜蚯蚓，制成蚯蚓干。仅在涟水某镇就有5个这样的非法加工点。这些加工点每天可以向河南、河北等地的制药厂发送上千斤蚯蚓干。按照10斤活蚯蚓可烘干制作1斤蚯蚓干计算，每天差不多有上万斤蚯蚓被捕捉。
“绝户式”电捕破坏土壤生态
危害农业生产安全
这样的情况让徐贵娟和她的同事们非常痛心。那么，在涟水县还有没有其他乡镇也存在这样的情况？徐贵娟决定和同事们到全县各乡镇摸底。
在暗访中，检察官发现，电捕蚯蚓现象在各乡镇都不同程度存在。有相当一部分农民这样认为：“现在工作也不太好找，做这个来钱快还轻松，前期仅投资个一两百块钱很快就有回报。再说了，蚯蚓到处都是，抓一点也没啥关系……”
检察官暗访时发现村民在清理捕捉的野生蚯蚓
那么，蚯蚓真的是抓一点没啥关系吗？“我现在明显感觉地里的土结块，蓄水情况和土质也都不如以前了……”涟水县黄营镇已经承包农田16年的老王对此叫苦不迭。他的地里被电捕蚯蚓的人“光顾”了几次以后，蚯蚓几乎绝迹，影响到了农田生态。
老刘是陈师镇的种粮大户。最近几年，地里总有人带着“地龙仪”来，经常是他在这边把人轰走了，那边又有人偷摸进地里……为此，老刘还装上了24小时监控，但收效甚微。
“蚯蚓是保持土壤生态的重要成员，对维护土壤肥力有着非常重要的作用。蚯蚓能疏松土壤，防止土壤板结，还能降解土壤中的污染物。同时，它吞咽土壤后排出的粪便里有丰富的活性有机物质和氮磷钾等多种元素，所以，我们会通过增加土壤中蚯蚓种群的数量来改良土壤。”淮安市耕地质量保护站站长杨用钊告诉徐贵娟，“我们现在大力推广生态农业，要求保持土壤的生物多样性，蚯蚓就更加不可缺少了。涟水是苏北重要的产粮区，保护蚯蚓非常重要。”
中国科学院南京土壤研究所研究员董元华告诉记者：“蚯蚓被称为土壤中的工程师，是土壤健康状况优劣的指示器。我们在评价土壤的质量等级时，一项标准就是每平方米蚯蚓的数量。一般认为，每平方米土壤里蚯蚓的数量大于50条时，表示土壤处于健康状态；数量在20条至50条时，表示土壤处于中等退化状态；数量在4条至20条时，表示土壤处于重度退化状态；数量小于4条，表示土壤处于极不健康状态。”
涟水县检察院检察官向当地农业专家请教蚯蚓对土壤的作用。
电捕蚯蚓的行为不仅影响了耕地土壤健康，也对其他农产品生产造成了危害。
芦笋是涟水的特色农产品，种植面积约2万亩，年产值可达8亿元，产品销往全国20个省市。然而，正因为有人在地里电捕蚯蚓，导致土壤生态被破坏，种植户们不得不花巨资购买含有蚯蚓幼虫的蚯蚓粪来改良土壤质量。据了解，有的芦笋种植大户每年用在购买蚯蚓粪和人工运输、播撒上的费用甚至达到上百万元。
“现在在禁渔期电捕鱼会被处罚，甚至捕杀一定数量的麻雀都会受处罚。蚯蚓对生态环境的作用不比鱼和麻雀少，严禁电捕蚯蚓是保护农田生态的重要措施。农田的生态保持好了，才能给子孙后代留下更肥沃的土地啊！”老刘叹息着说。
检察监督推动相关部门严查电捕蚯蚓
经初步调查，徐贵娟将相关情况向院里作了汇报。4月，涟水县检察院决定通过公益诉讼的形式开展对蚯蚓的保护。
检察官首先想到的是提起民事公益诉讼，但因蚯蚓的数量多、繁殖快，我国野生动物保护法、陆生野生动物保护实施条例等法律法规均未把野生蚯蚓资源作为保护对象。国务院发布的有重要生态、科学、社会价值的陆生野生动物也没有把蚯蚓列入其中。因此，该院直接对电捕蚯蚓的人员提起民事公益诉讼要求损害赔偿的设想目前于法无据。
徐贵娟决定另辟蹊径，通过开展行政公益诉讼推动以行政处罚来禁止电捕蚯蚓行为。“根据农业法中要求保护自然资源的规定，从保护动物多样性的角度出发，特别是考虑到动物对生态环境的重要作用，对蚯蚓的保护符合法理要求，也顺应生态保护需要。而且，在田地里使用电击装置，对于在田地里劳作甚至是路过的行人都存在危险，依照治安管理处罚法等法律法规的规定，也应受到处罚。”
4月13日至15日，涟水县检察院先后向当地5个行政监管部门发出诉前检察建议，建议他们加强巡查，通过劝阻、没收工具等手段来打击电捕蚯蚓行为，得到了当地行政机关的高度重视。与此同时，涟水县检察院撰写了相关报告，向上级检察机关、当地人大和政协反映情况。
5月12日，涟水县政府专门发布公告，禁止任何单位、个人非法捕捉、收购或者加工野生蚯蚓，违者将由相关行政机关依法查处，构成犯罪的，将依法追究刑事责任。
了解该案情况后，淮安市检察院立即组织专项活动，在全市开展排查。目前，淮安市淮阴区检察院已向相关单位制发了检察建议，建议当地行政机关加强管理，严查非法捕捉、收购、加工野生蚯蚓的行为。
日前，徐贵娟和同事们又来到了陈师镇，微风正拂过地里金黄的麦穗。“这两天麦子就能收割了。这段时间公安局、农业局轮番来检查，最近一个多月基本没人来电捕蚯蚓了，检察院真是为咱种粮户做了件大好事。”看着即将丰收的500多亩麦地，老刘开心地为检察官点赞。
相关链接：
针对电捕蚯蚓产业链，2020年，广东省修改了该省野生动物保护管理条例，要求对“前款规定保护的野生动物以外的其他陆生野生动物，按照本条例规定管理”，并明文禁止使用电击、电子诱捕装置猎捕野生动物，同时规定，任何单位和个人不得擅自制造、出售前款规定的猎捕工具。
2020年7月，中国生物多样性保护与绿色发展基金会向广东省珠海市中级法院递交了起诉状，对三家“电蚯蚓机”售卖企业提起公益诉讼。2021年8月，珠海市中级法院作出一审判决，判决三家售卖“电蚯蚓机”的商家赔偿损失，并在全国媒体上刊登道歉声明。今年2月，广东省高级法院作出“驳回上诉，维持原判”的终审裁判。
（来源：检察日报 作者：管莹 汪彦）
高大伟 David Cowhig's Translation Blog 
Pingback: 2023 Wiki/Chinese: Nongguan 农管 – Ag/Rural Enforcement | 高大伟 David Cowhig's Translation Blog
Pingback: 高大伟 David Cowhig's Translation Blog