By SHUI ZHUYU

Agriculture Correspondent

SHANGHAI (China Daily Show) – In what some are describing as “the final straw,” nearly half-a-million still-living fish have been pulled from a stretch of river that runs through Shanghai.

The fishy find follows reports of up to 16,000 dead pigs, 1,000 dead ducks and hundreds of human corpses being pulled from China’s waterways.

“That’s messed-up, man,” said one Shanghai resident. “What is with all those live fish? I mean, the river’s full of floating dead pigs, for gosh’s sake! How the hell can those fish still be alive?”

“I wouldn’t eat a dead fish from that river, let alone a live one,” commented local mortician Ding Jing, 43. “Give me a fresh monkey anytime.”

“What’s next – algae?” demanded one sickened student.

Government officials have told worried Shanghainese that the discovery of still-living animals in the Huangpu River is no cause for alarm. “The water quality hasn’t changed: it’s still completely fucked,” one expert reassured.

But not everyone was convinced.

“There’s something definitely wrong with the water, and with those live fish,” said a talking fish yesterday, adding that it “just wanted to live a normal life” along with the rest of its two-headed friends in the Huangpu River.

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