PRAGUE: Bohemian Customs authorities has uncovered an illegal shipment holding four exotic butterflies and two lizards that coming from Papua New Guinea in Czech Republic.
The butterflies were transported in envelopes, and the two dead lizards were in a vessel with alcohol, Customs officer said.
They said the parcel, uncovered late last week, was addressed to a Czech resident, and it bore the inscription “For scientific purposes.”
Inside, there were four Ornithoptera priamus butterflies and two lizards, a mangrove monitor and an armadillo girdled lizard.
Experts from the Czech Environmental Inspection (ČIZP) have said the animals are protected wild species that are protected by the CITES international convention, and trading in them is banned.
The consignment also contained hundreds of other animals, to which CITES does not apply.
Matějková said the protected species were placed among the number of others probably in order not to be found easily. The customs officers are investigating the case.
“In the past, we seized illegally imported animals to the same addressee, and we fined him 5,000 Kč,” ČIZP spokeswoman Radka Burketová said.
Matějková said the seizure is far from the first of its kind. Late last year, Central Bohemian customs officers uncovered a few dozen bird spiders and almost 600 ornithoptera priamus butterflies in a shipment from abroad.
