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