Over a thousand geckos freed from criminal taxi

Over a thousand geckos discovered in the trunk of a taxi in Cambodia. Photo courtesy of Wildlife Alliance.

May 08, 2011
Jeremy Hance
mongabay.com

Over a thousand tokay geckos (Gekko gecko) were found in a single trunk of a taxi by the Wildlife Rapid Response Team (WRRT), forestry officials, and military police in Cambodia. WRRT is wildlife-crimes program run by Wildlife Alliance.

Boxes filled the taxi’s trunk. In the boxes were bags stuffed with 1,027 tokay geckos, of which nineteen had perished.

"[The tokay geckos] were likely going to be turned into food or possibly dried out for use in traditional medicines. There are also reports that Malaysian syndicates are buying them to fight them in rings, with onlookers gambling on the results," reads a blog from Wildlife Alliance on the incident.

Cambodia Saves Rare Bears

By Ker Yann, VOA Khmer
Video Editor: Manilene Ek
27 April 2009

In China and Vietnam, thousands of bears are farmed for their bile, which many consider a potent traditional Chinese remedy. Scores of other bears are killed to make bear paw soup, which is considered to be a delicacy. Now, conservationists in Cambodia are rescuing as many bears as possible from animal traffickers in order to give them a better life.

Jodie Ellen spends her days playing with some of the most adorable bear cubs. Altogether, she helps look after over 100 infant and adult bears at this huge bear sanctuary, 40 km south of Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh. The project is run by Free the Bears, an Australian-based NGO that rescues bears from illegal traffickers who supply bile farms in China and Vietnam. Other bears are sold for their meat. The group also takes in bears that are kept as pets and often neglected and abused. Ellen only has good things to say about these bears.

Jodie Ellen: "Bears are just an amazing species. They are intelligent, they have such personalities, and they're such a vital part of the ecological scheme of things. So every species is worth protecting, and bears are up there with that."

Every morning, Jodie, her husband Peter, and a team of volunteers head to the local market. They buy dozens of bananas and pineapples - enough to feed the bears at the sanctuary for one day. Volunteers work hard unloading the fruit and chopping it up for the bears to eat. They mop and scrub their cages, making sure the animals have clean and healthy places to stay. Although the work can be long and tiring, Australian volunteer, Janine Ferris, says she loves it.

Janine Ferris: "They can do whatever they want. They eat, they throw their bananas around, they do whatever, and I'm just there to clean up, and it just brings me enormous joy. It's really wonderful."

Srey Lek is a sun bear and was kept as a pet for 12 years. She developed a habit of scratching her belly with a metal pole. When the wound became infected, her owner was no longer able to take care of her and handed her over to Free the Bears. Vuthy Chon, a project manager, is taking extra special care of her.

Vuthy Chon: "The wound on her chest has been there for at least 4 or 5 months and during that time she never received proper treatment from a veterinarian. That is why the wound got bigger and now it may be hard to treat. We are treating her in this clinic with antibiotics and cleaning the wound with saline solution."

Some bears arrive at the sanctuary with serious injuries after being caught by hunters using snares. Others are found at traders' homes awaiting sale to the highest bidder.

Once at the sanctuary, bears are treated for any injuries and are slowly integrated into groups of animals of a similar age. Sun bears are found across Southeast Asia. Adults weigh between 45 to 60 kg and healthy bears can live into their late twenties. In Asia, they face increasing poaching, especially to make bear paw soup. Some people believe eating bear meat gives them extraordinary virility and strength.

Jodie feeds a sun bear known as Sai through a hole in this wooden box. The bear will soon be sent to France in this crate to be part of a breeding program. The goal is to help increase the size of the species' population outside of Asia in case the local population drops to more critical levels.

Jodie is training the bear to get used to staying inside the box for longer periods at a time, to make the long-distance flight as comfortable as possible for her.

It is impossible to know exactly how many bears are left in the wild in Asia. The group says there are 4,500 bears at bile farms in Vietnam and over 7,000 bears at roughly 200 bile farms in China.

Bear bile contains ursodeoxycholic acid, which is believed to reduce fever, protect the liver, improve eyesight, break down gallstones, and act as an anti-inflammatory. Although scientists have come up with synthetic bile that is equally effective, many people still seek the real thing, in spite of the harm that bile farming causes to these bears.

Bears are highly intelligent, so to keep the animals at the sanctuary on their toes and always learning new things. Although life in the wild would perhaps be ideal for the bears, until threats to the species subside, the sanctuary may be the next best thing for the animals.

Information for this report was provided by APTN.

Rising ivory demand threatens Asia elephants: study

Mon Feb 16, 2009

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Rising prices and strong demand for illegal ivory threaten the survival of Indochina's remaining elephants, according to a study by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.

In the report, released on Monday, the group said they had surveyed 669 shops in Vietnam and found 11 percent selling nearly 2,500 ivory items.

Much of the raw ivory was said to have originated from neighboring Laos, with the remainder from Vietnam and Cambodia. No raw African ivory was found.

"This is a worrying trend that indicates even more pressure is being put on already fragile Asian elephant populations," Azrina Abdullah, director of TRAFFIC Southeast Asia, said in a statement.

According to figures from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, there are at most 1,000 elephants in Laos and about 150 in Vietnam.

An earlier TRAFFIC report found evidence of widespread smuggling of live Asian elephants and their ivory from Myanmar.

The latest TRAFFIC study found that Vietnamese illegal ivory prices could be the highest in the world, with reports of tusks selling for up to $1,500 per kilogram and small, cut pieces selling for up to $1,863 a kg.

"Continued demand for illegal ivory is driving the prices so high," Abdullah said.

The report said the main buyers were from China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), Thailand, local Vietnamese, American-Vietnamese and Europeans.

"Trade in ivory was outlawed in Vietnam in 1992, but a major loophole in the legislation exists because shops can still sell ivory in stock dating from the prohibition," said TRAFFIC in the statement.

"This allows some shop owners to restock illegally with recently made carved ivory," it said.

The report said there were fewer ivory items seen in shops in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi in 2008 than in 2001 during a similar survey. But it said worked ivory was increasingly being sold directly to buyers through middlemen or on the Internet, bypassing retail outlets.

It said Vietnam acceded to the U.N. convention that governs trade in endangered species and called on the government to close any loopholes that allowed the illegal ivory trade to flourish.

(Reporting by David Fogarty; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

Prevention of wildlife smuggling in Cambodia often undermined by weak enforcement or local corruption

3 June 2007
Wildlife smuggling in Asia still a roaring trade

AFP

HONG KONG - Carved up for the dinner table, ground up for medicine or simply sold off as exotic pets, Asia’s endangered species are at the core of a lucrative smuggling trade that shows little sign of easing off.

An abandoned wreck of a boat off China’s southern coast last month exposed its breadth: on board, dying in the baking sun, were more than 5,000 lizards, tortoises and pangolins, not to mention 21 bear paws.

Once ashore they would likely have ended up as food or used in traditional medicines.

It is not just small animals. Tigers are dying out in India and Nepal. At least 1,000 orangutans are trafficked out of Indonesia’s Kalimantan province alone every year. Bears are hunted for their bile, rhinos for their horn.

“People see it as quick cash with low risk,” said Petch Manopawitr, deputy director of Thailand’s Wildlife Conservation Society.

Smuggling is at the centre of a three-yearly conference starting Sunday in The Hague under the auspices of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

China has long been seen as a magnet for wildlife smuggling because of its traditional medicines and taste for exotic animals.

“Wildlife is basically defenceless as there’s no animal protection law in China,” said Qin Xiaona, head of the Capital Animal Care Association group.

“Some nouveau riche want to eat what ordinary people can’t eat in order to show off their wealth.”

Experts reckon up to a tonne of pangolins, or scaly anteaters, are smuggled over the Thai-Laos border every month, many for use in medicines.

“The biggest demand comes from China,” said Chairul Saleh of welfare group WWF. “They don’t only want the scales but also the meat for consumption.”

Tiger bones have been used to treat rheumatism and arthritis and the penis is said to increase male potency.

Bear bile is used for liver complaints and fatigue, deer musk for treatment of strokes, rhino horn against inflammation. Pangolins have reputed medicinal and aphrodisiac qualities.

Animal pelts — bears, tigers, Tibetan antelopes — are also prized, while the rhino horn is used to make dagger handles in Arab nations, fetching up to 14,000 dollars on the black market.

Thai police commander Thanayod Kengkasikij said a crackdown simply ups the allure, noting that “the increasing value (of the animals) is attracting more criminals.”

Asep Rahmat Purnama, the executive director of wildlife watchdog ProFauna, estimated the trade in Indonesia as worth a billion dollars a year.

In India, which has 60 percent of the world’s remaining tiger population, conservation efforts have been hampered by poachers seeking the pelt — which can sell for up to 16,000 dollars — claws and bones.

Officials surveying rare Royal Bengal tigers say their population may have declined as much as 50 percent from the 3,700 estimated in 2002.

In Taiwan, a poacher can hope to sell a bear for 4,500 dollars.

In Malaysia, said Chris Shepherd of the wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic, the most sought-after creatures are water turtles, tortoises, many species of snake, pangolins, the Sumatran rhino, tiger and samba deer.

He said crime syndicates were becoming increasingly involved.

The effect is to strip some countries of native wildlife — only 50 to 150 tigers survive in the wild in Vietnam, according to official and environmental agencies.

In Thailand, the focus is shifting to exotic pets such as wild birds and rare reptiles because species such as tigers and pangolins are disappearing, said Tassanee Vejpongsa, of US-based group WildAid.

“We do believe that the number of animal species in Thailand has gone down to the point it can’t really be a supplier any more,” Tassanee told AFP.

Similarly in Cambodia. “We are not seeing tigers and leopards in the trade because they have been almost wiped out,” said Nick Marx, also of WildAid.

But it remains a lucrative business. “If they weren’t making a lot of money they wouldn’t be doing it.”

Another problem cited by officials and groups in nations such as Cambodia, India, Indonesia and Thailand is that legislation is often undermined by weak enforcement or local corruption.

“There is an indication of the involvement of customs or other officials in wildlife trafficking, especially for bigger animals such as orangutans,” said Indonesia’s Purnama.

After all, he said, when creatures like that are being smuggled out “it is impossible not to detect them before air transport.”

Tigers in the eye of Vietnam conservation storm

Ngo Duy Tan, a businessman and owner of 24 tigers, holding one of the newly born cubs at his home in Southern province of Binh Duong, 21 March 2007. An emotional dispute over the fate of 41 captive tigers in Vietnam has pitted a beer company owner against a coalition of environmental groups who are describing it as a test case in conservation. (Photo: AFP)

29/03/07
by Frank Zeller
AFP

An emotional dispute over the fate of 41 captive tigers in Vietnam has pitted a beer company owner against a coalition of environmental groups who are describing it as a test case in conservation.

The headline-grabbing battle started more than two weeks ago when the prime minister ordered authorities to take action against four families who were keeping the endangered cats in unofficial private zoos near Ho Chi Minh City.

Since then the tigers have rarely been out of the news as the owners have fought back, claiming they are taking better care of the tigers than the government could in its poorly-funded zoos.

Spokesman of the group Ngo Duy Tan, owner of Pacific Brewery, and of 24 tigers, has drawn much public support while threatening to sue for libel those who have accused him of breaking the law.

Many Vietnamese have backed him in the media, and ex-prime minister Vo Van Kiet said Tan should be applauded for helping conserve the species, despite the fact he has contravened international treaties.

As Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung is expected to make a final decision, a coalition of environmental groups has written to him, demanding that Vietnam enforce its laws, confiscate the endangered cats and punish the owners.

"The public should be left without doubt that no one should be allowed to keep tigers as pets or breed this endangered species and that all effort should be focussed on the conservation of this animal in the wild," they said.

The group includes the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC, the Worldwide Fund for Nature, the World Conservation Union, Fauna and Flora International and local groups Wildlife At Risk and Education for Nature.

The coalition pointed to reports that the tigers were illegally trafficked from neighbouring Cambodia, breaching the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which Vietnam ratified in 1994.

The treaty aims to stop the use of wildlife products, mainly in traditional Chinese medicine and as food, an illegal trade in which Vietnam is both a destination country and trans-shipment hub to China and beyond.

The environmental groups stressed that habitat degradation and fragmentation, hunting and the illegal wildlife trade had pushed tigers "close to extinction in Vietnam" with only about 100 left in the wild.

They also rejected claims that the tigers were being bred for conservation purposes, saying their genetic origin was unknown and that there have been no known successful introductions of captive tigers into the wild.

The letter was immediately leaked to the media, fuelling the heated debate, and Tan has since threatened to sue the groups for having "seriously hurt his dignity, honour and prestige".

Amid the row, all sides admit there are few good options.

Releasing the animals into the wild is not feasible since few virgin forests remain, the tigers are not accustomed to fending for themselves, they would be under threat from poachers, and would present a danger to humans.

Giving them to a zoo is equally tricky since no facility in Vietnam exists that could absorb more than three dozen tigers.

A third option mentioned by officials would be to euthanise them, a step certain to cause a public outcry.

For now, the fate of the tigers is in limbo amid signs Hanoi's stance has softened since newspapers and TV crews stormed the tiger farms and reported how well the animals were being cared for.

Tan said he bought five ailing tiger cubs in 2000 and bred them to a group of 24 now, claiming he was motivated by his love of the animals, not profit.

He said he had kept provincial authorities informed all along and applied to set up a conservation park but received no response.

"I am just an ordinary man who wants to protect the animals from being killed," he told AFP. "I have created a friendly environment for the tigers. Each month, I spend 100 million dong (6,200 dollars) on them."

Agriculture Minister Cao Duc Phat, who oversees the forest protection department that is meant to police the illegal wildlife trade, visited last week and reportedly said he was impressed at "how healthy the tigers are".

Many letters to newspapers also backed Tan, the tiger man.

"Those who proposed the confiscation of the tigers should go into early retirement," fumed reader Thien Phat.

"The prime minister should think carefully before making a decision if he does not want to upset and lose his prestige before the people."

For their part, the six conservation groups are trying to agree on a publicly acceptable solution while getting their message across.

"This is a tipping point for conservation," said Sulma Warne, Greater Mekong coordinator of TRAFFIC. "If inappropriate decisions are made here, we're setting a precedent for other endangered species."