Police Intercept 1,400 Slain Wild Animals - 12/20/00-

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police have intercepted a shipment of 1,400 illegally slain wild animals, including boars, deer and three tons of hares and pheasants, state media said Tuesday. Many of the dead animals, discovered in five containers on Monday in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, were stuffed into boxes marked ``apples'' and ``veterinary medicine'' and were apparently bound for dinner plates and medicine jars in northeastern China. Authorities were questioning five suspects in the case, the biggest of its kind in a decade in the province, the China Daily newspaper said. ``The possibility that there is an organized gang that traffics in wild animals is very real,'' it quoted Zhou Lingguo, director of the Provincial Wild Animal Protection Office, as saying. None of the animals were listed as nationally protected species, it quoted Zhou as saying. Animal parts, including those of many endangered species, are used as ingredients in traditional medicine. Many Chinese also consider wild animal meat a delicacy more nutritious than the flesh of domesticated pigs, chickens and cattle.