Bangkok production house releases clip of monster lizard swallowing giant turtle whole – via Herp Digest

By Laurel Tuohy May. 18, 2017, Coconuts Bangkok 

To see video go to http://tinyurl.com/llxbedf

Bangkok production house Rubber Knife Productions just released a short film that might teach even seasoned Bangkokians a thing or two they didn’t know about the city’s scariest creatures — monitor lizards.

The 5-minute clip, filmed over five afternoons in Rot Fai and Chatuchak Parks, was created for anyone that “appreciates nature, these awesome reptiles, and a good story,” said Director/Producer Kevin Richard.

“We wanted to do something educational, but also add a smidge of humor to it. We live in a rush 24/7 era. Often, the cool things are happening right in front of us and they are free.”

They featured monitor lizards, also called “hia” since the creatures often elicit this swear when spotted, because so many of them live close to the Rubber Knife office. Richard said, “We think they are amazing creatures who have passed the test of time and live harmoniously right here in Bangkok amidst the mayhem.”

“It’s a shame that they are looked at as a hindrance and are being ‘relocated’ from some parks to somewhere safer,” said Richard, referencing the lizards that were removed from Lumpini Park last year.

“They’ve been here way longer than we have. We should leave ‘em be.”

About the filming and the ending of the short lizard narrative, Richard said, “We got really lucky to capture the turtle scene. It was a total fluke. Jim (the director of photography) and I were just wrapping up for the day when we decided to check one more spot. The next thing you know — a hunt! That was day two. We came another three times along with our new guy, cameraman Dennis Natrayon, to grab the rest.”

So far, the creators are getting great feedback about the video. “We hope that the interest continues as we have a whole bunch of other things in the pipeline. Our dream would be to do this thing full-time. This has always been a pet project of ours when we are not working on corporate gigs as it puts us in total control of our storytelling and style.” 

The director added about the sad ending for the film’s turtle, “As cruel as it looked and as much as we felt bad and wanted to save the turtle, we didn’t want to disturb nature. Whether we were there or not, the same thing would have happened without the cameras rolling.”

Co-writer and voice-over artist Jeremy Linn chimed in with, “As brutal as it is, it is truly fascinating that that level of wild animal activity happens in the middle of a city of 10 million people.”

Rare Malagasy tortoises turn up in luggage seized in Bangkok

December 2013: Royal Thai Customs have seized a bag containing 62 highly threatened Radiated Tortoises Astrochelys radiata and arrested a Malagasy national at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport.

The bag was not picked up from the luggage carousel raising the suspicion of Customs officials who then scanned the bag to check its contents. The tortoises were discovered hidden in the foam-lined suitcase.

Officials managed to locate the suspect, a Malagasy national, who had flown from Antananarivo to Bangkok. He is under arrest and is being investigated under several sections of Thailand's Wild Animals Preservation and Protection Act 1992, Customs Act and the Animal Epidemics Act.

Continued

Thai officials intercept three turtle smuggling attempts

Photo: A Thai official displaying
seized black pond turtles after they
 were discovered in suitcases at
Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport

November, 2013: Four suitcases containing 470 black pond turtles have been seized at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok by Thai Royal Customs and a Pakistani national on a flight from Lahore was arrested. The turtles, which varied in size from 6-25cm in length, are increasingly at risk from the pet trade in Southeast and East Asia and becoming increasingly rare in the wild. 

The species is completely protected in its native Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal, and is listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which makes any international commercial trade illegal.

Continued

Man presumptuously kidnaps 13 percent of an entire turtle species - via Herp Digest

By Sarah Miller, Gristlist 3/28/13

Tell me you wouldn’t steal 13 percent of the living population of these guys.

There are only 400 — that’s 400, a number you can count to in less than five minutes — turtles in the whole entire world that can call themselves Astrochelys yniphora, or ploughshare turtles (if turtles could speak, or could in fact do anything other than eat lettuce with stupid expressions on their faces). So naturally, since humans are perhaps even dumber than how dumb turtles look eating, a man took it upon himself to try to smuggle 54 of these turtles through the Bangkok airport. That’s 13 percent of the ploughshare turtles in the world.

The man seems to have been in cahoots with a woman who traveled from Madagascar to Thailand with the turtles. She brought them in, he picked them up, and, just in case later on you want to cast the movie Stupid Turtle Stealers at some point, she is 25 and he is 38.

(Editor- The number is false. Their have always been a small population of ploughsare tortoises due to their specific habitat needs) There used to be millions of ploughshare turtles, which are found only in Madagascar. But people are really into them, because they’re neat looking, so their numbers have dwindled over time to the now rather remarkable and depressing number of 400. This is partly the fault of the pet trade, which is where these 54 turtles were headed — which is good news, because it means they were alive when authorities found them. They must be shipped back to Madagascar as quickly as possible since the Thai climate is not ideal for them and also since each one of their lives is considered very precious. We are thinking of you, little turtles. You can make it.

Largest ever seizure of Critically Endangered Ploughshare Tortoises made in Thailand

Hundreds of protected tortoises found at Bangkok Airport

March 2013. Just a day after the close a global wildlife trade conference here in Bangkok, authorities at Suvarnabhumi International Airport made two big seizures, discovering hundreds of threatened tortoises and apprehending two smugglers. Among the tortoises seized were some of the rarest in the world.

Authorities arrested a 38-year-old Thai man as he was attempting to collect a bag containing tortoises from Madagascar, from a luggage carousel, at the airport. The bag was registered to a 25-year-old woman who had flown from Madagascar to Bangkok via Nairobi the same day.

54 Ploughshare tortoises and 21 Radiated Tortoises
Royal Thai Customs officers and their counterparts in the CITES management authority found 54 Ploughshare Tortoises and 21 Radiated Tortoises Astrochelys radiata, both of which are assessed as being Critically Endangered.

Critically Endangered
Ploughshare and Radiated Tortoises are endemic to Madagascar, totally protected in the country and are both listed in CITES Appendix I. The wild population of Ploughshare Tortoises, considered among the rarest species in the world, is estimated to be as few as 400 individuals, and is declining fast.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/bangkok-tortoises.html

Eleven live otters found in airport luggage in Bangkok

Otters in trouble in Asia

January 2013. Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport has seen countless traffickers attempt to smuggle a myriad wild animals out in luggage, but never otters-until now. Officers at the airport's Wildlife Checkpoint and the Royal Thai Customs discovered 11 live otters when they scanned a bag that had been left at the oversized luggage area of the airport.

As the bag bore no tags and no one claimed it, the officers opened the luggage to find six Smooth Coated Otters and five Oriental Small Clawed Otters inside. The otters, which look to be juveniles, will undergo health checks before being handed over to the Bang-Pra Breeding Center in Chonburi for care.

Otters disappearing from their range
Otters and some species of wild cats are at serious risk in South-East Asia, experts said in 2009 after analysing thousands of camera-trap records that helped map the regional distribution of many small carnivore species. Some, like otters, have apparently disappeared from parts of their former range.

The experts, including members of the IUCN-SSC Cat Specialist, Otter Specialist and Small Carnivore Specialist Groups had pushed for more research on small carnivores like otters that play an important ecological role in tropical forests but receive relatively little conservation attention. They also called on Thailand to develop a national action plan to ensure greater protection for small carnivores.

"This find is a surprise and a worrying one. Otter skins have been interdicted in trade elsewhere in Asia, but live otters are a new development as far as we know. Yet another species we know little about is in danger from wildlife traffickers," said TRAFFIC's Regional Director in South-East Asia, Dr William Schaedla.

"It is great to see that frontline officers in Thailand are maintaining vigilance. However there must be more intelligence led investigations that will arrest the problem at source," he added.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/bangkok-otters.html

Ivory being laundered through Bangkok shops

Thai ivory ban needed to save elephants

January 2013. Massive quantities of African ivory are being laundered through shops in Thailand and fuelling the elephant poaching crisis, conservation group WWF says. The organization is launching a global petition asking Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to ban all ivory trade in Thailand in order to curb the illegal killing of African elephants.

Legal to sell Thai elephant ivory

Although it is against the law to sell ivory from African elephants in Thailand, ivory from domestic Thai elephants can be sold legally. Criminal networks are exploiting this legal loophole and flooding Thai shops with blood ivory from Africa.

Sudanese Janjaweed militiamen believed to be responsible for the massacre of hundreds of elephants earlier this year are on the move again in Central Africa. Intelligence sources say they are headed back to Cameroon with the intent to shoot more elephants for their valuable ivory tusks. This time, however, Cameroon's special forces will be waiting at the border. Governments like Cameroon are becoming increasingly alarmed by the use of wildlife trafficking as a source of funding for insurgents. Rebel groups, drug syndicates and even terrorist networks have seen an opportunity to profit from what has until now been a low risk, high reward criminal enterprise.

Populations of rare animals like elephants, tigers and rhinos are plummeting as a result. The products sourced from this bloody business are nearly unrecognizable on the other end of the trade chain where they are being sold in up-scale, air conditioned Asian boutiques. Intricate carvings, jewelry and medical tonics made from endangered species are becoming more and more popular in places like China, Thailand and Vietnam. Economic success has thrust swaths of people in to the middle class, and many have come with the desire to possess things that used to be out of reach to all but the highest elites. Although they are illegal, they are easily obtainable by anyone with internet access and a big enough bank account. Consumers of illegal wildlife products may not know that their money is being used by militias to purchase guns and bribe government officials. Militias like the one run by a man called 'Morgan' who led an attack on a wildlife refuge in Democratic Republic of the Congo in June. Morgan's crew shot dead seven people and took others as hostages and sex slaves. The destruction brought about by illegal wildlife trade has its roots in Asian demand. But poaching is able to thrive in places like Central Africa because governance is weak and there are few economic opportunities. This paradox has led to government paralysis. Source and demand countries are simply blaming each other for the scale of the problem rather than working together on solutions, according to the findings of a forthcoming study commissioned by conservation group WWF.

"Existing laws are not effective at keeping illegal African ivory out of the Thai market. The only way to prevent Thailand from contributing to elephant poaching is to ban all ivory sales," said Janpai Ongsiriwittaya, campaign leader in WWF-Thailand. "Today the biggest victims are African elephants, but Thailand's elephants could be next. Ms Shinawatra can help put an end to the killing, and I believe Thai citizens will support greater protection for these iconic animals."

Read on:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/ivory-bangkok-sale.html

Polydactyl cats at Hemingway Museum in Bangkok, Thailand (new subj)

Cats at Hemingway Museum Draw Tourists, and a Legal Battle

Jason Henry for The New York Times

The cats, including Clark Gable, are considered by the Department of Agriculture to be like animals in zoos or traveling circuses.
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
Published: December 22, 2012

KEY WEST, Fla. — As any visitor to Ernest Hemingway’s house knows, the grounds here boast more than just Papa’s typewriter, his white iron-framed bed and the oft-used urinal he brought home from Sloppy Joe’s bar.
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Marlene Dietrich, one of the celebrity-named cats at the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum. More Photos »

The place teems with six-toed cats — the so-called Hemingway cats — who for generations have stretched out on Hemingway’s couch, curled up on his pillow and mugged for the Papa-razzi. Tour guides recount over and over how the gypsy cats descend from Snowball, a fluffy white cat who was a gift to the Hemingways. Seafaring legend has it that polydactyl cats (those with extra toes) bring a bounty of luck, which certainly explains their own pampered good fortune.

But it seems the charms of even 45 celebrated six-toed cats have proved powerless against one implacable foe: federal regulators.

The museum’s nine-year bid to keep the cats beyond the reach of the Department of Agriculture ended in failure this month. The United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that the agency has the power to regulate the cats under the Animal Welfare Act, which applies to zoo and traveling circus animals, because the museum uses them in advertisements, sells cat-related merchandise online and makes them available to paying tourists.

In other words, the cats are a living, breathing exhibit and require a federal license.

“The most ludicrous part of the whole thing is that if we were really dealing with the health and welfare of the cats, this would have never been an issue,” said Michael A. Marowski, the great-nephew of the woman who bought the Hemingway house in 1961, the year Hemingway died, and opened it as a museum in 1964.

“These cats are so well taken care of,” he said, “but because there is a book, and this book tells us that exhibited animals need to be kept this way, we have been put through this.”

Mr. Marowski is pondering whether to appeal to the Supreme Court.

In his view, the tale of the Hemingway cats is nothing more than federal regulation run roughshod over the myriad local and state laws that govern domesticated animals. The cats, most of which bear the names of famous people, have long received weekly veterinarian visits, and a vast majority are spayed or neutered.

The cats eat well, are free to lounge on Hemingway’s furniture (because it is also their house), and even have their own cemetery near the garden, where Frank Sinatra lies buried within arms’ reach of Zsa Zsa Gabor and where Marilyn Monroe is one sultry glance from Mr. Bette Davis (it is Key West, after all).

In fact, when the Agriculture Department sent People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to assess the situation in 2005, the group’s investigator concluded: “What I found was a bunch of fat, happy and relaxed cats. God save the cats.”

The appellate court agreed that “the museum has always kept, fed and provided weekly veterinary care for the Hemingway cats.” In their ruling, the three judges even injected a dose of understanding.

“We appreciate the museum’s somewhat unique situation, and we sympathize with its frustration,” the ruling states. “Nevertheless, it is not the court’s role to evaluate the wisdom of federal regulations.”

At the moment, the museum is unaffected by the ruling. That is because it reached a settlement with the department in 2008 that granted the museum an exhibitors’ license so long as it extended the height of the fence, added a few special bowls designed to drown bugs and upgraded its cat shelters.

But Mr. Marowski said that did not mean the fight was over. The museum, he said, would be subject to any changes in regulation, any one of which could upend the museum and the cats.

“We are now at the whim of the agency,” said his lawyer, Cara Higgins.

David Sacks, a spokesman for the Agriculture Department, said the agency was simply following the law, which also covers team mascots, for example, and is meant to ensure proper daily care. Cruelty is not the threshold, he said. The agency must also track things like toxic peeling paint or rodent infestation.

“If the animal is covered by the act, we don’t draw distinctions,” he said. “We regulate them.” 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/us/cats-at-hemingway-museum-draw-a-legal-battle.html?_r=0

890 rare Star toroises seized at Bangkok airport

Tortoises openly on sale in Bangkok market
September 2012. A suitcase filled with 890 Indian Star Tortoises has been seized, and an Indian national arrested at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International airport. Acting on a tip off, Tourist Police and Royal Thai Customs officers stopped the 26-year-old man who attempted to smuggle the tortoises into the country on a Thai Airways flight from Calcutta to Bangkok, on Monday 27th August.

The tortoises, all juveniles, were found stuffed into six pillow cases and hidden inside the suspect's suitcase.

Demand as a pet
The Indian Star Tortoise is highly prized as an exotic pet and remains a target for collection and trade despite being afforded legal protection across the species range countries of India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. All three countries have banned the species's international commercial export under national legislation, making all shipments from these countries illegal anywhere in the world.

Read on:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/star-tortoise-sale.html

Briton arrested in Thailand after being found with six roasted human foetuses

A British citizen in Bangkok has been arrested after Thai police found six roasted human foetuses packed in his luggage.

Chow Hok Kuen, who is 28 and of Taiwanese origin, was held by police after the grisly discovery was made in Bangkok's Chinatown district yesterday.

Reports says the six foetuses had been covered in gold leaf after being roasted as part of a black magic ritual.

It is not clear where the bodies came from, but Chow Hok Kuen is believed to have been attempting to smuggle them into Taiwan.

The bodies were reportedly found in a different hotel from the one Chow Hok Kuen was staying at, but were in his luggage. 

Police made the arrest after responding to information they'd received saying that infant corpses were being offered to wealthy clients via a black magic services website.

Continued:  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/briton-arrested-in-thailand-after-being-found-with-six-roasted-human-foetuses-7766232.html