Tricks of the protected animal trade

Tricks of the protected animal trade

A group of children is seen crowding around a young man. It
turned out that the man, Santoso, was carrying a slow loris -- a
rare, nocturnal lemur -- locally known as a kukang, with him.

"I bought it at Pramuka bird market for Rp 80,000 along with
its leash about four months ago," said Santoso, a resident of
Pinang Ranti in East Jakarta.

But he felt cheated. The vendor said the slow loris was still
a baby, as could be seen from its lack of teeth. After keeping it
for some time, none of the teeth appeared.

"It seems the vendor has pulled out all its teeth to make it
look like a baby. See, its gums are scarred," he said.

As a result, he lost interest to keep the animal.

"I've gotten fed up with it and I don't know what else to do
with it," he said, full of regret. He intended to re-sell it to
anybody interested.

What Santoso experienced with his slow loris was one of the
many tricks employed by animal vendors to cheat their buyers.

In Bandung, for instance, the vendors paint the entire body of
the slow loris with black hair dye before offering it as "a very
rare animal" to buyers. When the buyer realizes his mistake, the
animal is already his and he is responsible for its survival.

Another trick, a neat one, used to sell rare animals -- alive,
preserved or only certain body parts -- is by placing an ad in a
newspaper or on the Internet.

A recent classified ad in Pos Kota daily, for instance,
offered a "cute baby orangutan and a living baby bear" for Rp 3
million each. The ad also offered tiger's fangs for Rp 850,000.
In the same paper, various species of animals -- like a myna bird
(at Rp 950,000), eagles, yellow-crested cockatoos, birds of
paradise and Irianese alligators (at Rp 750,000).

In this marketing trick, the seller usually gives a telephone
number or address, and negotiations can be done over the phone.
At times, the ads are placed not by rare animal traders but by
owners who had become bored with their "rare pets".

The flourishing trade of rare animals in major cities is one
of the reasons blamed for the continued population decline of
these animals in the wild. Vendors or suppliers will continue to
place orders with hunters to get enough supplies.

According to the World Conservation Union, Indonesia is listed
as the country with the world's largest number of wildlife
species threatened with extinction.

It said that as many as 128 species of mammals, 104 species of
birds and 19 species of reptiles have entered the Red Data Book,
which listed species threatened with extinction across the world.

Indonesia is in fact home to 17 percent of the world's fauna.
It boasts 515 species of mammals, 1,539 species of birds, 600
species of reptiles and 45 percent of all the fish known in the
world.

In ensuring that animal vendors do not make transactions on
illegal or rare animals, a number of relevant agencies have made
some attempts to stem the trade. Confiscation raids were
regularly conducted in a number of markets. However, vendors
would put up resistance when the raids were conducted.

"Take, for example, the year 2000, when animal vendors in Jl.
Barito, South Jakarta raided. The raid ended up in a mass brawl,"
said Yunus Makasau, a staff at the Natural Resources Conservation
Center (BKSDA) of Jakarta.

At that time, he said, the vendors strongly resisted the raid,
and fought the officers. Only when an officer fired his gun did
the brawl stop. "After being mobbed in this clash, I was
hospitalized for two weeks," said Yunus, who is often seen in
various raids conducted to confiscate protected wildlife.

The raids, unfortunately, were yet to be fully supported by
security apparatuses. Worse still, the raid failed to produce
anything important. "Many times, information about the planned
raids were leaked," Yunus said.

Head of BKSDA Maraden Purba revealed that his office found it
difficult to bring this matter to court. The vendors usually put
up strong resistance when confronted by the officers, arguing why
vendors at other markets, places of origin of the rare animals
and hunters were not apprehended as well.

And BKSDA cannot do much either in an attempt to enforce the
law against those keeping rare animals, particularly certain
civilian and military officers.

"We find it difficult to enter their houses, let alone
confiscate the animals although we have fulfilled various
official procedures for confiscation," he said.

Still, BKSDA hopes the public will help in, calling those who
keep protected animals to voluntarily surrender them back to the
government.

"We will receive these living animals and will do our best to
return them to their original habitat," said Yunus. He assured
the owners not to be afraid. "Nothing will be done to them."

So far, BKSDA has set dozens of orangutans free in their
natural habitat in Kalimantan jungles. -- Bambang Parlupi