Restaurant butchers crocodile in public promotion

Stores often pull out all the stops to attract customers. But a new hot pot restaurant in Xinxiang, in central China's Henan province, went a bit too far with its public crocodile slaughter, frightening several diners.

A reporter with the local Oriental Today newspaper witnessed the butcher in the restaurant.

Chefs first ripped the reptile's throat with a knife, causing blood to pour forth for nearly five minutes. Then they cut off its head and tail, opened its belly and removed its entrails.

The animal kept struggling and quivering even after it was sliced open. Onlookers backed away in horror. Young girls screamed and covered their eyes.

"It's cruel," said one woman who removed a young boy from the scene. "I shouldn't let him see it. He's scared."

Many others agreed that the public butcher was too bloody, especially for children and teenagers.

A manager at the restaurant argued that the slaughter was only a sales promotion, and was completely legal.

The crocodile was bought from an authorized farm, and the restaurant has a license to sell wild animal products, he added.