FYI: If there were volunteers
examining shipments of wild animals, there would be less trade in
illegal and endangered animals. Animal rights activists could be doing this
work, and even receive some form of remuneration. Taking wild animals from their
habitats is also cruel...I think....
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/1203/21animals.html
Endangered creatures for sale
Illegal
animal trade reaps billions yearly
Dec 20, 2003
By CHARLES
SEABROOK
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lawrence Wee Soon Chye, who
once advised National Geographic filmmakers with
his authoritative knowledge
of reptiles, hung his head as a federal judge
tongue-lashed him in an Orlando
courtroom.
"Your crimes are reprehensible," said U.S. District Judge John
Antoon. "They
not only are a form of animal cruelty, they also endanger
public health."
Antoon wished out loud that he could sentence Chye to a much
longer sentence
than the 37 months federal guidelines allow.
Chye, 38,
in a prison jumpsuit brilliant as a scarlet macaw, pleaded guilty
this month
to charges that he smuggled hundreds of endangered and protected
creatures to
dealers and collectors in the United States last January. His
lucrative black
market career, likely spawned by his fascination with
reptiles as a child in
Singapore, was over.
Tens of thousands of endangered wild creatures from
Brazil, Indonesia, Ghana
and other countries are being smuggled each year to
black markets in the
United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. Traffickers
entice native people --
often resourceful children -- to capture coveted
animals from rain forests
and other wild habitats. A hyacinth macaw bought
for $100 from an
impoverished Amazon youngster can fetch as much as $10,000
from collectors
in the United States and Europe.
Antoon summed up the
consequences of the illegal animal trade: Not only does
it threaten many
species with extinction and risk despoiling entire natural
areas, but it also
threatens public health by introducing exotic germs, many
of them deadly, to
humans.
Both of this year's novel scourges, monkeypox and SARS, stemmed
from contact
with wild animals. And West Nile virus may have originated in
the United
States with an infected smuggled bird.
It was the rank odor
wafting from two boxes shipped from Singapore, boxes
labeled "books and
magazines," that provoked a U.S. customs inspector at the
FedEx hub in
Memphis to look inside.
No books. No magazines. The inspector recoiled at
what he saw.
Numerous reptiles, a few of them dead, packed tightly inside
-- 198 Fly
River turtles from New Guinea, 25 Indian star tortoises from
India, and
three Timor monitor lizards -- among the species protected by
international
law because of their increasing scarcity in the wild. And many
of them
potential carriers of deadly exotic diseases that threaten to sicken
people
and other animals in this country.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service special agents traced the creatures, worth as
much as $400,000 on the
black market, to Chye, described as a smooth-talking
kingpin in the world of
animal smuggling. They nabbed him within hours of
his arrival in Orlando,
where he planned to set up a temporary headquarters.
>From his
compound in Singapore, authorities say, Chye profited as a broker
of rare
animals to dealers and individual buyers.
The insatiable demand for
exotic pets, from parrots and macaws to pythons
and iguanas, is driving the
wildlife trade, estimated at $6 billion a year.
At the high end are
collectors willing to pay thousands of dollars for
exceptionally rare
animals, like Komodo dragons for $30,000 each and
plowshare tortoises at
$25,000 each. At the other end are teenagers and
apartment dwellers who spend
$30 to $75 for animals at pet stores and exotic
animal shows and on the
Internet.
"Anything that walks, creeps, crawls or flies has a price on
its head," says
Mike Elkins, deputy assistant law enforcement supervisor for
the Fish &
Wildlife Service in Atlanta. Trade in endangered animals is
generally
illegal under a 30-year-old treaty signed by the United States and
162 other
countries. But the treaty is little match for the huge profits and
minimal
risks that lure smugglers -- whose contraband most often ends up in
the
United States.
And most often ends up dead. Authorities figure
that as many as 75 percent
of the smuggled creatures die on their long, hot,
airless journey.
Interpol, the international police agency, says wildlife
smuggling is so
pervasive on a global scale, it is surpassed only by the
black market in
drugs. In many areas, organized gangs, including South
American drug cartels
and the Russian mafia, have added wildlife smuggling to
their other
illegitimate activities.
Putting major traffickers like
Chye out of business puts a dent in the
illicit trade, but perhaps only
temporarily, say wildlife authorities. Other
traffickers are eager to fill
the void, using a variety of ruthless schemes
to get endangered wildlife into
the hands of dealers, collectors and exotic
pet fanciers.
Stopping the
smugglers in this country is an overwhelming task, Elkins says,
since only 92
federal wildlife inspectors are assigned to airports and
border crossings
nationwide. And preventing the extinction of some species
may be
impossible.
"With the loss of habitat and the illegal smuggling of
animals for profit
and gain, there are many animals that are . . . going to
go extinct," says
Ernest Mayer, head of special operations for the Fish &
Wildlife Service.
"So I think from that standpoint we're
losing."
First U.S. stop: Miami
Most of the black market animals
entering the United States arrive by air.
The hot spot in the Southeast
is Miami International, with its connections
to South America. Opening
cartons there, the airport's five wildlife
inspectors routinely find snakes,
lizards, tortoises, parrots -- and
sometimes baby orangutans.
In an
airport warehouse, inspector Jim Stinebaugh cautiously slits open a
large box
labeled "Live Frogs."
"No matter how many times you do this, you get a
little antsy," he says.
Poisonous snakes are sometimes found inside
shipments.
In this box, Stinebaugh finds layer upon layer of plastic foam
cups with
lids. Each holds a thumb-size frog, snatched from the wild and
shipped from
the South American country of Suriname.
Another box holds
dozens of clear plastic containers, each harboring a
crawly rose-haired
tarantula spider from Chile. "They'll spray you with
hairs if you make them
mad," Stinebaugh warns.
This time the animals are legal, he concludes --
headed for pet shops in the
United States and Canada.
As best he can,
he checks to see if any endangered species are stashed with
the legal
animals, a common ploy of wildlife smugglers.
He is mindful that one
smuggling tactic is to pile bags containing water
monitors -- aggressive
lizards that can be shipped legally -- atop an
endangered animal at the
bottom of a crate. The smugglers know that most
inspectors are reluctant to
shove around snapping lizards to look for
contraband beneath.
One of
the world's most notorious wildlife smugglers, Keng Liang "Anson"
Wong, 44 --
released last month from a federal prison in California after
serving six
years -- used this method. From his private zoo in Malaysia, he
shipped
thousands of rare and endangered creatures, mostly reptiles, to
collectors in
the United States, Japan and Europe.
To fool airport customs and wildlife
inspectors, he bound the rare animals
with tape so they couldn't move and
stuffed them in burlap bags stapled to
the bottom of shipping crates. Many
died from the harsh shipping conditions,
but Wong stood to profit as long as
some survived.
In Miami, Stinebaugh's boss, Vicky Vina, says that on a
good day, inspectors
there are able to peek inside about three in every 10
shipments.
"We get awfully busy," she says. "We often get 60 to 70
wildlife shipments
through here in one day."
Scores of animals --
mostly reptiles -- were smuggled through Miami by Chye,
Wong and
others.
Not all smuggled animals come through cargo facilities. Airline
passengers
hide live creatures in their baggage and clothing. Miami's agents
have found
tiny marmoset monkeys under hats, parrot chicks and baby snakes
in
underwear, and little tortoises stuffed in baggy pants.
Once, when
customs inspectors in the Miami terminal noticed a woman's bust
wiggling,
they found rare parrot chicks stuffed in her bra. More recently, a
man's
heavy, loose-fitting clothing was a tip-off -- he was trying to
smuggle 44
birds through the airport by taping them inside toilet paper
tubes and
securing the tubes to his legs.
Sometimes the animals are simply stashed
in suitcases.
In one Argentinian passenger's suitcase, Miami inspectors
found 107 chaco
tortoises, 102 red-footed tortoises, 76 tartaruga turtles, 20
red Tegu
lizards, seven rainbow boa constrictors and five Argentine
boa
constrictors -- all barred from global trade.
"Smugglers use every
little trick they can muster to stay one step ahead of
us," says Jorge Picon,
wildlife agent in charge at Miami. "It's a
never-ending struggle."
In
business since '97
Chye, a short, trim man whose dark horn-rimmed glasses
give him a
professorial look, acknowledged in court documents that he had
bought, sold
and traded reptiles -- legally and illegally -- since
1997.
"He had a strong interest in animals and at one point worked for
National
Geographic as a consultant," said his federal public defender,
Stephen
Langs. Chye made no statements in court, and Langs refused to let him
be
interviewed.
Prosecutors said he shipped hundreds -- perhaps
thousands -- of protected
animals to dealers and collectors in Florida,
Massachusetts, California and
Washington state. Most were sent via FedEx,
labeled as books, magazines,
lamps or other merchandise.
One
California collector said Chye sent him an emerald tree monitor, which
grows
as long as 34 inches, and a yellow boa constrictor in a shipment
labeled as
"microwave safe" plastic container samples. Both reptiles
are
protected.
In August 2002, according to court records, Chye, using
the alias Jon
Morelia, (Morelia is the genus name for carpet and diamond
python snakes)
met University of Central Florida business student Michael
Barrera at the
International Reptile Breeders Exposition in Daytona Beach.
Barrera claimed
to be an Internet reptile dealer.
He and Chye agreed
to do business together. Chye, in a show of friendship,
invited Barrera to
Indonesia to go "reptile hunting."
Barrera was the eventual recipient of
the odoriferous shipment of turtles,
tortoises and monitor lizards that came
through Memphis in January, touching
off the investigation of
Chye.
When confronted, Barrera told authorities about several previous
illegal
shipments between himself and Chye involving hundreds of endangered
snakes,
lizards and turtles. Several of the reptiles died en route. At one
point, he
said, Chye offered to send him Komodo dragons, one of the world's
most
endangered species.
Barrera has not been charged. He could not be
reached for comment for this
article. In court papers, he said he had known
what he was doing was illegal
and that he "had been stupid" to get involved
with Morelia.
A collector in Washington state tipped off investigators
that Chye and a
business associate were flying from Bangkok, Thailand, to
Orlando in June to
set up a temporary smuggling operation.
The
associate, Leong Tian Kum, 33, a Bangkok reptile dealer, was arrested
with
Chye shortly after they landed at Orlando International Airport.
Kum, aka
"Bobby Lee," was charged with money laundering and illegally
sending
endangered animals to a Wisconsin dealer. Authorities said he
shipped pancake
tortoises from East Africa, Hermann's tortoises from the
Mediterranean rim
countries, and Borneo leaf turtles in FedEx packages --
labeled "native
crafts."
Arrested in Waukesha, Wis., was Reid Turowski, 28, owner of
Captive Bred
Specialties, who was accused of illegally receiving the animals
from Lum.
Both men face more than 10 years in prison.
The dead
zone
Many smugglers avoid live animals altogether. They traffic in dead
animals,
or their parts, fueling a black market that parallels the pet trade
-- and
adding to the threat to individual animals, species and
ecosystems.
Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport receives
relatively few
live animals, though it gets plenty of illegal objects made
from rare
animals -- skins, shawls, carved ivory objects and the
like.
When U.S. authorities find endangered or otherwise illegal animal
parts at
airports and border crossings, they are sent to the National
Wildlife
Property Repository near Denver, a facility that bears stark
testimony to
the size and breadth of this market.
Shelves are piled
high with boots, wallets, purses, briefcases and coats
made of the skin of
elephants, caimans, cobras, leopards, jaguars and other
animals. Bins sag
with hair clips, combs and necklaces carved from sea
turtle shells. Tons of
confiscated elephant ivory occupy other bins. The
"Asian Medicine Section"
holds black bear gallbladders, dried tiger penises
and powders and extracts
made of tiger bones and black rhino horns.
Locked in a cabinet are more
than 50 softer-than-silk "shahtoosh" shawls,
many seized from an
international smuggling ring. The shawls, worth $30,000
each on the black
market, are made from the fine hair of endangered Tibetan
antelopes, which
must be killed before their hair can be harvested.
Though the warehouse
is crammed with confiscated animal products, it's still
just a holding
facility. Most of the illegal merchandise will end up in
schools or museums
or being sold at auction.
"We're constantly turning over our inventory,"
says Special Agent in Charge
Bernadette Atencio. "If we didn't, we'd be
stacked up in no time."
Trade shows popular
By far the most
lucrative side of the wildlife trade is live animals.
Nearly 7 million
U.S. households have a pet bird, and 4 million have a pet
snake, iguana or
turtle, according to the American Pet Products
Manufacturers Association.
Some of the interest comes from people who live
in apartments or those with
allergies to dogs and cats.
Particularly unusual animals, however, are
attention getters and status
symbols.
The fascination with exotic pets
perhaps is most apparent at the more than
400 wild pet expos held around the
country each year.
Typical of those gatherings is the Atlanta Reptile and
Exotic Pet Show, held
last month at the Gwinnett Gwinnett Civic &
Cultural Center. Scores of
visitors paid $7 apiece to get in, then stood in
line at booth after booth
to buy exotic pets.
A Brazilian rainbow boa,
$175. A Goliath bird-eating tarantula, $100. A
Bengal cat kitten, $400. A
Moluccan cockatoo, $1,500. Emerald tree boa,
$275. African spur-thigh
tortoise, $225.
Authorities say Chye and other global wildlife dealers
are regulars at some
of the bigger shows, making valuable contacts and deals
there. Most dealers
are believed to be operating legally.
Most of the
animals they offer for sale were likely bred legally in
captivity, which
authorities say avoids harm to wild populations -- but not
in every
case.
The animals may have been snatched illegally from the wild, a
cheaper source
of inventory for dealers.
The problem is determining if
an animal is captive-bred or smuggled.
"Once an animal is smuggled in,
it's difficult to determine if it's legal or
illegal," says Tom
Watts-Fitzgerald, a U.S. attorney who prosecutes
smuggling cases in Miami.
"Dealers claim their animals are captive-bred and
legal.
"But if you
go to a pet show or a store to buy an exotic pet, you really
have no
foolproof way of knowing if it's legal or not."
When did I EVER deny that anxiety is a
state of mind?