Political will needed to tackle illegal trade of turtle meat in Bali: officials – via Herp Digest

By Coconuts Bali Oct 7, 2019

The trade of all turtle species, turtle products and their eggs may be illegal under Indonesian law, but a recent accident involving a truck transporting more than a dozen sea turtles in Bali last week revealed a glimpse into how weak law enforcement enables the trade to continue on the black market. 

“Law enforcement is weak. [Police] are the one who must enforce them. We are not authorized to crack down on [illegal trade],” Permana Yudiarso, an official from the Coastal and Marine Resources Management Center (BPSPL) in Bali, told Tribun-Bali recently. 

Last week, a truck driver reportedly transporting 18 sea turtles crashed his vehicle on Sunset Road, Kuta. Yudiarso saw the incident as another signal into how illegal trade of turtle meat still exists on the island. 

A special report by Tribun-Bali seems to have reaffirmed this, wherein a number of food stalls were found to offer turtle meat on their menu. In fact, one of the owners of these establishments claimed that the turtles from the accident last week was his order. 

“Many police officers and people from the prosecutor’s office often come by to eat [turtle meat] here,” the owner reportedly said. 

Cases involving turtle meat in Bali are not exactly new. In March, police officers from Gianyar regency managed to save 13 live green turtles from a suspected illegal turtle meat trade. That was followed by another case in April, in which officials seized 280 kilograms of turtle meat from a truck at the Padangbai port. 

Sulistyo Widodo, an official from the Natural Resources Conservation Center (BKSDA) in Bali, said that turtle meat traded in Bali usually comes as ready-to-sell meat items, and highlighted that Ketewel village in Gianyar regency are quite known for dishes with the illegal products. 

Indonesia’s 1990 Conservation Law categorizes sea turtles as protected species, and violators could face up to five years’ imprisonment and a maximum fine of IDR100 million (US$7,056). 

Yudiarsa highlighted that the continued illegal trade in Bali is due to existing demand, emphasizing on the importance of “political will” to curb the activity. 

“It’s simply about will. Political will … There must be a will coming from the regional government and also the consumers themselves. It must be a joint commitment,” Yudiarsa was quoted as saying.

Crimes against nature: how greed fuels illegal trade in animal parts

Scotland Yard’s small wildlife unit opens its store of raided treasures for the first time

Vikram Dodd Police and crime correspondent

Mon 28 Jan 2019 07.00 GMT

DC Sarah Bailey with some of the finds she has seized from illegal traders. Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

Row upon row of primate skulls sit in a glass case, jaws stuck forever in a grimace. Rhino horns big and small rise from a table, a depiction of Jesus on the cross in ivory lies on a table, as does a polar bear skin; in the corner a rack is laden with fur coats; another glass case contains mounted butterflies.

The items – a mix of the achingly beautiful and the macabre – sit in a storeroom in south London. They are all items seized by Scotland Yard’s wildlife crime unit and behind most is a story showing how greed, obsession and the yearning for profit collide.

This week the small unit made headlines with its investigation of Stephanie Scolaro, a London heiress and Instagram model who imported and sold hats made of python skins. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to community service and in a later interview the heiress questioned what harm she had done.

DC Sarah Bailey has an answer: “Illegal wildlife is the fourth-biggest illegal market in the world behind drugs, guns and human trafficking.”

The trail that led to Bailey knocking on Scolaro’s door, started in Indonesia where poachers killed and skinned the snakes to order.

The skins were sent via Germany where their customs intercepted them wrapped in a travel bag addressed to a woman in Mayfair.

Continued

Facial recognition tool tackles illegal chimp trade

By Beth Timmins BBC News

22 January 2019

Wildlife criminals had better watch out! The same software that recognises you in a friend's social media post is being adapted to tackle the illegal trade in chimpanzees.

The amber eyes in the image above belong to Manno, who was trafficked from Africa to Syria before being rescued.

Pictures of Mano are now being used to train the algorithm that could help save members of his endangered species from the same experience. It's a first for chimpanzee conservation.

The algorithm will search through photo posts on social media looking for the faces of rescued apes.

If the technology recognises a trafficked animal, the owners of the accounts featuring the chimp can then be targeted by the authorities.

Read on

Endangered apes saved from pet trade

By Victoria GillScience reporter, BBC News

7 November 2017

Conservationists are celebrating the arrival of a baby Javan gibbon - the first of this species to be born in the wild to parents that were rescued from the pet trade.

Conservation International says the birth is a boost for the future of the apes on the Indonesian island of Java.

But illegal trade is still a threat, and is increasingly moving online.

A UK-based investigation this year revealed that the law protecting these ape species was being openly "flouted".

Researchers who carried out the investigation, who are based at Oxford Brookes University, also showed BBC News videos of protected species being advertised by pet traders on social media platforms.

Learning to be wild

The birth of the wild-born Javan gibbon - in a protected forest in West Java - is a breakthrough for a project that has now released 17 of the apes into the area.

Conservation International (CI) and the Javan Gibbon Foundation have rehabilitated the animals, and rangers now patrol the site at Mount Malabar daily, monitoring the animals and checking for any poaching activity.

Read on 

Our changing attitudes to chimpanzees

David Shukman Science editor

2 February 2017

The BBC's revelations about the illegal trade in baby chimpanzees triggered an outpouring of emotion on social media about the cruelty suffered by these adorable animals

And this raises questions about how our attitudes to our closest relations in the natural world have changed. 

Some people who contacted me volunteered to adopt Nemley Jr, the infant rescued from traffickers after the BBC investigation. 

Many expressed outrage at the wealthy buyers in China, South East Asia and the Gulf states whose demand encourages poachers to go on raids in the jungles.

There has also been a new burst of fury at celebrities posing with chimps. 

Michael Jackson famously kept one called Bubbles. 

Paris Hilton drew criticism for kissing a baby chimp. 

More recently, Louis Tomlinson, of One Direction, was criticised for using one in a video. 

And a small number on Twitter and Facebook were so disturbed by the heart-breaking scenes in our videos that they wanted to see anyone trading endangered animals immediately locked up or even killed.

What this represents is the latest episode in a long and often shameful relationship between chimps and humans.

Read more  

New data shows 'staggering' extent of great ape trade

By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, Johannesburg 

A new database suggests say there has been a dramatic under-reporting of the live, illegal trade in great apes. 

Around 1,800 orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas were seized in 23 different countries since 2005, the figures show.

Since 90% of the cases were within national borders they didn't appear in major data records, which only contain international seizures.

The new database has been published at the Cites meeting here in Johannesburg.

Records incomplete

Comprehensive data on the illicit trade in great apes is rare. 

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) only keeps records of international seizures, which experts in the field have long believed was giving a misleading impression.

The new Apes Seizures Database paints a more detailed picture, compiling figures for any seizure of a great ape in an unlawful situation dating back to 2005.

"It's definitely a staggering number, it's larger than we expected," said Doug Cress from the Great Ape Survival Partnership, who have put together the new database.

"We're finding that it's really averaging about two seizures a week around the world. That may seem small but the usual ratio for a chimpanzee is that to get one alive you've had to kill five or 10, for gorillas it's like four to one.

Read on

Indonesia seizes hundreds of frozen pangolins

Authorities find more than 650 critically endangered pangolins hidden in freezers in Java

Agence France-Presse

Friday 26 August 201610.44 BST

Indonesian authorities have seized more than 650 critically endangered pangolins found hidden in freezers and arrested a man for allegedly breaking wildlife protection laws, police said on Friday.

Police discovered the pangolins, known as “scaly anteaters”, when they raided a house in Jombang district on the main island of Java after local residents became suspicious about the large number of freezers in the property.

A total of 657 pangolins, which are consumed as a luxury dish in China and used in traditional medicine, were found wrapped in plastic and stored in five large freezers, East Java province police spokesman Raden Prabowo Argo Yuwono told AFP.

The house owner, a 55-year-old man whose identity was not disclosed, was arrested and has been named a suspect, a step in the Indonesian legal system meaning that authorities believe they have enough evidence to consider filing charges.

He could face five years in prison and a fine of 100m rupiah ($7,500) for breaking wildlife protection laws.

“The suspect insisted the Pangolins were not his, a friend asked him to store the animals because he has freezers,” Yuwono said, adding the friend named by the suspect was also being sought.

The suspect, who was arrested during the police raid on 15 August, insisted he had not sold any of the pangolins and refused to tell police where they were to be sent, the spokesman said.

Pangolins are sought after in China and other parts of Asia for their meat, skin and scales. The meat is considered a delicacy, while the skin and scales are used in traditional medicine and to make fashion items such as make boots and shoes.

Protection group the International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies the pangolin species found in Indonesia as critically endangered.

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