tagged w/ Smuggling Animals
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Alleged UAE animal smuggler flees Thailand
By Andy Sambidge
Tuesday, 31 May 2011 9:46 PM
Photo: The baby sun bear found in a suitcase at Bangkok Airport. (Freeland Foundation)
A man from the UAE who was arrested as he attempted to smuggle suitcases filled of endangered baby animals out of Thailand has escaped from the country, it was reported on Tuesday.
Noor Mahmood was detained on May 13 by undercover officers at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport with the animals which included four leopard cubs, a Malayan sun bear, a baby marmoset and a baby red-cheeked gibbon, according to wildlife campaign group Freeland Foundation.
Mahmood was charged with smuggling endangered species out of the kingdom and released on a 200,000 baht ($6,600) bail, but he left Bangkok on a May 23 flight to the UAE, immigration police told news agency AFP.
Freeland called for Thai and UAE collaboration to continue with the case.
"Thai police did a great undercover operation to nab Mr Mahmood just as he was about to board his first class flight to Dubai," the group's director Steven Galster told AFP. "But since he was caught red handed and charged, we want to know why he is not being prosecuted?"
The case prompted animal welfare charities to urge the UAE to do more to clamp down on the illegal smuggling of endangered and exotic animals into the country.
“Not enough is being done to prevent this trade,” Galster told Arabian Business.
Ashley Fruno, a senior campaigner of PETA for Asia-Pacific, said tougher deterrents were needed to outweigh the easy money available to contraband traders.
Thailand is a hub for illegal wildlife trafficking, but authorities finding so many live mammals is unusual. Typical hauls are of rare tortoises, snakes and lizards.Alleged UAE animal smuggler flees Thailand
By Andy Sambidge
Tuesday,... more
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A safari theme park in Thailand has been slammed by animal lovers for its macabre way of attracting tourists by featuring orangutan kick boxing matches.
Previously, the zoo was closed six years ago on charges of animal cruelty for using the animals in the dangerous sport. Animal rights activists say that some of the orangutans, weighing up to 250 pounds, could cause serious harm to each other in a boxing match.
Safari World, on the outside of Bangkok, has been drawing huge crowds that cheer orangutans forced to wear boxing gloves and trained to trade punches and spin kicks.
As the heavyweights of the jungle duke it out, female orangutans parade around in bikinis displaying the round number.
According to an investigative report, after the 30-minute shows, the orangutans are returned to their dark, dingy charges.
"It's sad that people would find this entertaining," the New York Daily News quoted Debbie Leahy, director of captive animals for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, as saying.
"When you see these animals performing what are completely unnatural tricks...they're not doing it because they want to, they're doing it because they're afraid not to," Leahy said.
The Daily Mail of London obtained video exposing the barbaric matches at Safari World and showing tourists cheering wildly as apes pummel each other.
While organizers insists the orangutans have been trained to pretend as if they've been knocked out, disgusted animal rights activists warned of the abuse the 250-pound animals endure while being trained.
Orangutans previously rescued from other entertainment parks showed signs of abuse upon arriving at an animal refuge in Indonesian Borneo, they said.
"It is heartbreaking that such practices still go on," Grainne McEntee of the wildlife rescue group Borneo Orangutan Survival told the Daily Mail.
The Thai government shut down the Safari World monkey matches in 2004, and seized 48 orangutans that had been illegally smuggled from Indonesia.
It's unclear why the bizarre show is once more allowed to go on. (ANI)
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/5593665-shocking-ape-kickboxing-in-thailandA safari theme park in Thailand has been slammed by animal lovers for its macabre way... more
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Did you read the story about the illegal trade in gorilla testicles? Have you seen the one about parrots poached in Brazil using glue? How about the news bulletin last week about the guy at LAX with Australian lizards strapped to his chest?
Generally there are two kinds of wildlife crime stories in the media: the weird news item showing a smuggler in flagrante (a stunned German tourist with a marmoset hidden in his beard) and the "in-depth" overseas report. I want to focus on the latter because too often these overseas reports kill endangered species.
After a description of a featured [mammal] [reptile] [bird] enjoying the best day of its life, chances are that any overseas report you've encountered went something like this:
Illegal trade in wildlife is a $10 billion a year industry, second only to trade in illegal drugs. Last summer [fall, winter, spring] I visited [foreign country] and found [mammal, reptile, bird] for sale. Here's a photo. Then I interviewed an NGO official who told me that [mammal, reptile, bird] is near extinction. So, I joined up with a ranger and went with him on patrol--notice the spectacular scenery--and sure enough the ranger caught somebody [picture] with a [mammal, reptile, bird]. Insert quote. Conclude with a personal reflection on man's inhumanity to [mammal, reptile, bird].
Starting with the first sentence, as above, these stories are factually wrong. And after that, they spiral into something that often reads like an eco-tourist's vacation diary.
Almost every news report on the illegal wildlife trade gives its value at between 6 billion and 20 billion dollars a year, and they invariably compare it to the markets for illegal drugs and guns. Google search "second only to drugs." Unfortunately, there is absolutely no basis for these numbers.
I first heard the six billion, second only to drugs description from a convicted smuggler who told me he had been hearing the same statistic for 20 years so if it was true he should be left alone since it meant he was in a zero-growth industry. Then I heard U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Agents use the statistic, and then NGO leaders. I grew suspicious when I asked an NGO official her source for the figure, and she responded, "Why do you want to know?"
In most cases, stories cite Interpol for the figures, or the State Department, or an NGO, which in turn cites Interpol.
I contacted Interpol to find out some details on the figures and got a response from Bill Clark, Interpol Secretary, who lives in Israel. Clark knew the statistic and its sourcing to Interpol. He said: "We have no idea where the media gets its numbers, but it's not from Interpol." In fact, he added, "Interpol has no reliable data on which to base an estimate."
The six-billion-dollar figure has been increased every few years to get the ten and twenty billion figures often reported. Clark said that a newspaper in Nairobi had recently published "$31bn annually!"
So what? We all know illegal wildlife trade is big and that illegal traders are bad, so (apart from accuracy) who cares if we spice up the numbers a little?
Click on link for complete article.Did you read the story about the illegal trade in gorilla testicles? Have you seen the... more
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