PETALING JAYA: While authorities in the United States managed to arrest two Malaysian wildlife smugglers, there are many more out there plying their illegal trade safe from the clutches of the law.
Commenting on a recent FMT report regarding the arrest of Eoin Ling Churn Yeng, 35, and Galvin Yeo Siang Ann, 33, in Oregon on Friday, Elizabeth John, the senior communications officer of the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network (Traffic), said the illegal online trade of wildlife was a growing concern.
In Malaysia, John said the trade mostly involved the sale of local species to local pet owners, hobbyists or buyers.
“However, we’ve also seen Malaysians offering to post or courier locally sourced animals overseas, and vice versa,” she said, citing a recent example in July, when the National Wildlife and National Parks department (Perhilitan) seized two Sumatran orang-utans advertised for sale online in Malaysia.
John said the trend was worrying because it was so widespread and that some species were very rare, while the number of social media pages and websites offering wildlife was also very high.
“It will take much more resources, effort, and buy-in from a much wider variety of bodies, to tackle this problem – from enforcement agencies to mail and logistics companies.”
Education, she said, was also important as only a few seemed to be concerned that they were breaking the law and endangering vulnerable wildlife.
“We urge the public who have been reporting wildlife crime to authorities and hotlines to continue doing so.”
A source in Perhilitan, who declined to be named said it was not surprising that Malaysians were selling wildlife online.
“Normally, those selling online sell locally-sourced animals to local buyers, but the Internet is a big place and the market outside the country is bigger.”
The source said that Perhilitan worked closely with Interpol and the World Customs Organisation to reduce cross-border wildlife smuggling, but faced challenges due to how extensive it was.
“We share intelligence and information and assist each other. This year, Perhilitan and the police assisted Interpol in arresting a wanted wildlife smuggler from Nepal who was later extradited to face charges there.”
The source said that Perhilitan continuously monitored the Internet and social media websites for illegal wildlife traders but lamented that is was “a never ending” process.
Perhilitan has called on the public to help combat the illegal online trade of wildlife by reporting websites and social media pages to them.
