Activists plea for bird trap sales ban (3)

"It can lure all kinds of wild birds including the Lady Amherst's pheasant and owls, and we also provide nets and traps to catch them after you lure them in by playing the bird sound as a package," he said.

"DVDs of instructions are attached to turn amateurs into pros," he said.

On Tuesday, a media officer from Taobao, who declined to be named, told the Global Times that sales of bird hunting tools were banned a long time ago.

"The problem the volunteers referred to may result from some store owners changing the products' name and putting them on sale again, which wasn't caught by our computer system in time," he said.

However, such devices are also available on other online sites and in local markets.

"We'll strengthen our manual inspections, although we can't prohibit sales of all tools related to bird hunting, because they can be bought for other purposes, let alone the fact that bird hunting tools are not actually banned according to the law," he said.

Zhang Zhengwang, an ornithologist at Beijing Normal University, said catching wild birds is very common, even though the Wild Animal Protection Law prohibits hunting without official permission.