Mick Hartley

It's all going wrong for Buddhists. Once upon a time they were the religion that wasn't really a religion: the religion, indeed, that it was socially acceptable in progressive circles to admit an interest in. It was, perhaps, the fault of the Beats, and then the hippies. A new terror atrocity, with the authorities unwilling to admit that the culprit was inspired by Islam, would be met by ironic cries of "aha, it's those Buddhists again!".

Not any more. Not after Burma, and the persecution of the Rohinga. Maybe we could have seen it coming if we'd paid attention to the role of Zen Buddhism in Japan. 

And now, this:

Two Buddhists who released £5,000 worth of crustaceans into the Channel as part of a religious ceremony have been fined almost £15,000 for causing “untold damage” to the environment.

Zhixiong Li and Ni Li helped throw live crabs and lobsters into the sea off Brighton as part of a “life release” ceremony in 2015, a court has heard.

The pair were part of a group of almost 1,000 people celebrating the visit of the Taiwanese Buddhist master Hai Tao.

Their ritual was performed in the belief that returning animals to the wild is good karma. But because the crustaceans were not native species, they threatened other marine life and government agencies had to spend thousands of pounds in an attempt to recapture the shellfish, offering fishermen a bounty to reel them in….

Only 323 crustaceans have been recovered and the most recent American lobsters found had been carrying “viable eggs”, showing they had been breeding.

District judge William Ashworth said: “The release of non-active species into the marine environment is regulated precisely because the potential impact on native fish stocks could be significant.

“Unfortunately, not all these specimens have been recovered and the last few demonstrated that the lobsters are capable of breeding and producing viable offspring, The full impact of what you did is not known.”

Ni Li was fined £5,300 and Zhixiong Li £500. They were also ordered to pay £9,000 compensation.

This is not the first time Hai Tao’s followers have got into trouble for their attempts to save animals. In 2012, followers released 100kg of cobras in a mountainous area not native to the snakes.