China's penalty for illegally hunting these creatures is very low and only comes to 50 yuan, or about US$6, which is less than hundred times less the black-market price of a salamander. Establishments such as restaurants can charge up to $250–$400 per kg. A hunting tool known as a bow hook is one of the preferred methods used by hunters to catch the salamander. This hunting tool is made with a combination of bamboo and sharp hooks baited with frogs or smaller fish. This is used to capture the salamander and keep it alive. Some hunters use pesticides to kill the salamander. Farmers often poach wild salamanders to stock their breeding programs, while others are hunted as food. In May 2018, CNET reported that Chinese giant salamanders were being poached and eaten into extinction, after an extensive study found they were nearly extinct in the wild. In the study, the Zoological Society of London and the Kunming Institute of Zoology in China studied sites in 16 provinces over four years. The researchers had been unable to confirm survival of wild salamanders at any of the 97 sites they surveyed. The study also brought up worries that commercial farms and conservation programs were crossbreeding what they described as five distinct species of Chinese giant salamanders. All the wild populations studied were found "critically depleted or extirpated" by the study. A related study found that some of the five distinct genetic lineages were probably already extinct in the wild. To understand the conservation efforts in China, it is important to know something about the events of the several past hundred years of China's history relating to social attitudes, pressures on nature and natural resources, and the political ambition to safeguard the natural environment. Each of these are significant factors and determinants of conservation efforts. Up until the year 1700, China was a country that was rampant with land reclamations, growing land exploitation, and wars. These series of events led to a huge upsurge in the diminishing of the natural biomass and as well as a reduction in spatial distribution of biotic resources. The significance of this situation was that this drastic dwindling of resources made the people of this region aware of the relationship between utilization and conservation. From 1911 to 1949, China began to move into the direction of modern industry, urbanization, civil wars, and agriculture. This transition period brought with it the depletion and disappearance of various renewable resources, as well as the pollution of various biotopes. This lack of conservation eventually led to a deteriorating environment, which meant lower standards of living for the Chinese population.