My country Indonesia always do something illegal or destroy it's nature to get money, they don't care each other and the impact to the nature, it's so tragic
Confiscated pig-nosed turtles seen at Indonesia's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on April 1.
Photograph by Tatan Syuflana, AP
Published April 3, 2013
Nearly 700 endangered pig-nosed turtles were confiscated at Soekarno-Hatta airport in Jakarta, Indonesia, on March 15, according to news reports.
Awen Supranata, the head of the Jakarta Natural Resources Center, believes the turtles were destined for Europe or Asia as part of an illegal pet trade, the Associated Press reported.
The person responsible for shipping the 687 turtles remains under investigation, Supranata told AP. (Related: "Six Bizarre Animal Smuggling Busts.")
These rare freshwater turtles can be found only in northern Australia and southern Papua New Guinea. Due to illegal trade, fishing, and hunting, the reptiles are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The turtles will be treated and monitored by the Jakarta Natural Resources Center before being released back into the wild.
This incident comes only days after another illegal pet trade activity was thwarted in Thailand. Two smugglers were caught at Thailand's Suvarnabhumi International Airport with 54 ploughshare tortoises. That's roughly 10 percent of the species' estimated wild population of 600, according to IUCN, which lists the tortoise as critically endangered.
8 comments
poor babies. No wonder their existence is threatened. So the people who have these as pets do they show them off to their friends and neighbors. "look at the endangered species I have here in my back yard" Who is impressed by this?
This is so tragic. When will people stop being so selfish? So many animals will become extinct, especially in the wild, if demand for rare "pets" is not stopped. These animals will NOT be happy in some sort of confined display. And most people do not know how to meet the needs of exotic animals - food, health, temperature, habitat. These poor animals mostly end up living miserable, shortened lives. We need to protect their natural habitats and let them live free!
2 Like
Wild animals live better in the wild, wish people could understand that and stop doing what ever they want with them è.é
@Hunter Graham Sadly there is one thing that they do care about which makes them smuggle the animals, money.
1 Like
This sounds just like the whole "Bieber's monkey" story all over again. I wish that morons (like Justin Bieber) would get the heck out of animals' lives and shut up. They're ruining everybody's life.
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