Dead Pigs Found In River Cause Concern In Beijing Water Safety: Nearly 3,000 Pig Carcasses Found Along China's Shanghai River

Nearly 3,000 dead pigs have been found floating upstream in the Shanghai River, raising concerns about whether the water supply for Beijing, China has been contaminated.

The Huffington Post reports that representatives from Shanghai's Agriculture Committee don't know what caused the pigs to die and float in the rivers of Shanghai.

Huang Beibei is the man whose photos first exposed the problem on Thursday. He took pictures of the dead pigs lying off shore. The number of pig carcasses as of Monday, was tallied at 2,813. 

Though the Chinese government has assured its citizens the water is fine to drink, Beibel is not so sure,

"Though the government says the water is safe, at least I do not believe it - given the number of the pigs in the river. These pigs have died from disease," Huang wrote on his blog Thursday. "This is the water we are drinking. What is the government doing to address this?"

Shanghai's city government said initial investigations had found the dead pigs had come from Jiaxing city in the neighboring Zhejiang province.

"Ever since the police have stepped up efforts to crack down on the illicit market of sick pigs since last year, no one has come here to buy dead pigs, and the problem of pig dumping is worse than ever this year," an unnamed villager told the newspaper Jiaxing Daily.

The disease diseaseporcine circovirus, which is can be fatal for pigs but doesn't affect humans or other livestock has been found in at least one of the pig carcasses.

Wang Xianjun, a government worker for Zhulin village, told the newspaper that villagers were breeding too many pigs. Wang told the newspaper that the village had 10,078 dead pigs in January and another 8,325 in February.

"We have limited land in the village," he said. "We do not have that much land for burial."

Since local police have been begun cracking down on the illegal diseased pig trade, they have reportedly arrested 12 suspects and confiscated nearly 12 tons of tainted pork meat.

Zheng Fengtian, a professor at the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development at Renmin University in Beijing, acknowledged that there is illegal trade in diseased dead pigs in China.

"According to the law, dead pigs must be burned or buried, but if there is not enough regulatory monitoring, it's possible some of them will be sold into the market at low prices," Fengtian said.