HONG KONG MAKES RECORD SEIZURE OF PANGOLIN SCALES, IVORY

HONG KONG — Hong Kong customs officers have intercepted a record 8.3 tons of pangolin scales and hundreds of elephant tusks worth more than USD$8 million combined, underscoring the threat to endangered species from demand in Asia.

Acting on a tip from mainland Chinese authorities, local officials found the haul in mid-January in a refrigerated container labeled as frozen meat from Nigeria, officials said Friday.

They said the smugglers kept the temperature low to better disguise the smell of the illicit cargo. Police arrested two people in connection with the seizure.

It was the largest-ever seizure of pangolin scales in Hong Kong, representing the product of some 14,000 animals, and one of the largest of ivory in a decade, the officials said.

Scales of the anteater-like pangolin have for centuries been highly valued in traditional Chinese medicine. The scales, made of keratin akin to fingernails, are often roasted and ground to a powder before being added into a mix of ingredients to purportedly cure arthritis, promote breast feeding for mothers and boost male virility.

Scientists have designated all species of pangolins as being at risk of extinction. In the last two decades, the number of pangolins worldwide has dropped by about 90 percent.

Ivory tusks are a cherished decorative craft material in Asia, resulting in the devastation of wild elephant populations in Africa.

Under Hong Kong law, the importation and sales of endangered species and their products can be punished by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $1.3 million.

China and Hong Kong have sought to crack down on the illegal trade, although the semiautonomous port and financial center remains a major transit point for endangered species products and other contraband.

Last year, following the outlawing of ivory sales in mainland China, Hong Kong’s legislature enacted a complete ban on the local ivory trade to take effect by 2021, while raising penalties for offenders.

Meanwhile, a court in Thailand this week dismissed charges against a Thai man believed to be a kingpin in the illicit trade, according to Freeland, an organization that works with police to combat trafficking.

Police arrested Boonchai Bach just over a year ago at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport for his alleged involvement in the smuggling of 11 kilograms (24.2 pounds) of rhino horns from Africa worth $700,000. A Chinese man and a Thai wildlife quarantine officer accused of assisting the smugglers were also arrested.

Citing a lack of evidence, the Samut Prakan Provincial Court found Boonchai Bach not guilty of multiple charges relating to wildlife trafficking, Freeland said.

Boonchai was suspected of running a large trafficking network on the Thai-Lao border that spread into Vietnam. According to Freeland, he and his family played a key role in a criminal syndicate that smuggled items including ivory, rhino horn, pangolins, tigers, lions and other rare and endangered species.

“Prosecution of a complex transnational organized crime case like this requires a multi-agency effort to bring all the pieces of the puzzle together,” said Steven Galster, founder of Freeland. “Instead, we saw a kingpin walk free after a narrowly focused case fell apart when the prosecution’s only major witness flipped in front of his boss.”

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Sonoma Stories: A new veterinarian and a rescued elephant, plucked rabbits and whale sushi

There’s a new veterinarian in Sonoma County, one who might take to treating pampered pets if she weren’t so busy advocating for caged backyard lions, chained and trained elephants and other animals whose suffering at human hands can be unspeakable.

Heather Rally always knew she wanted to work with animals.

“My mother will tell you I popped out that way,” said the 31-year-old transplant from Southern California and newcomer to Sebastopol.

She said her destiny as an animal welfare activist was sealed as she watched in anguish the 2009 documentary “The Cove,” which details the slaughter of dolphins in Japan.

Today, Rally works full time for the Foundation to Support Animal Protection, also known as the PETA Foundation. Her primary focus is advocacy for captive wildlife kept in roadside menageries, circuses and private homes.

She thinks most people would be surprised knowing how many lions and bears are detained as pets or in wildlife exhibits.

“There are states where you can literally have anything in your living room with zero regulation,” she said.

She and PETA get involved upon evidence the animals are suffering from abuse or neglect. In one case, Rally said, she documented the mistreatment and deteriorating health of Nosey, an African elephant long kept by a traveling circus. Last year, authorities seized Nosey and moved her from Alabama to a sanctuary in Tennessee.

Investigations and advocacy of that sort are what occupy most of Rally’s attention as the supervising veterinarian of the PETA Foundation’s Captive Animal Law Enforcement division. But a new PETA video features Rally taking up the cause of animals far different from a circus elephant.

Rally traveled to a rural area outside of Shanghai, China, on behalf of a global garment retailer that had been assured rabbits raised for angora fur were treated humanely. Rally documented the opposite.

She said she watched in revulsion as factory farm workers plucked the fur of tied rabbits in clear agony. “The scream these rabbits emit is just horrifying,” she said.

Shown video of the practice, the people running the clothing retail business halted its sales of angora and donated all of its angora products to Syrian refugees.

Rally’s video on angora is featured in a 10-part PETA series, “PETA Reveals: Everybody’s Got a Story.”

Rally said that though rabbits continue to be plucked in China, oftentimes right next to ones being humanely sheared, more than 300 retailers have agreed to no longer purchase and sell angora. Just last month, the luxury brand Coach announced its adoption of a fur-free policy.

Rally grew up near the ocean. Not surprisingly, she said, “Marine mammals hands down are my greatest passion.”

While studying veterinary medicine at the Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, she received hands-on training at the National Wildlife Health Center in Honolulu, the Fort MacArthur Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro and Marin County’s Marine Mammal Center.

In 2010, Rally joined up with activists who’d filmed “The Cove” to investigate a claim that a Japanese restaurant at the Santa Monica airport was serving whale meat in violation of federal law.

She recalled, “My first reaction was, ‘This isn’t real. Not at the Santa Monica Airport.’ ”

Working alongside investigators with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Rally and a second woman went into the restaurant — called Hump — and posed as diners interested in eating the most exotic seafood available.

Rally said the sushi chef was wily but she and the other woman were persistent. At last, she said, the chef left the restaurant, walked to a parked Mercedes and took something from an ice chest in his car.

Served the delicacy, the women secretly wrapped some in a napkin for testing.

“It ended up being an endangered species of whale,” Rally said.

Federal officers arrested the chef on suspicion of violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act by serving Sei whale. The story made the New York Times.

The next week, “The Cove” won the Academy Award for best documentary.

The story of the undercover operation that led to the shuttering of the Hump restaurant was included in the 2015 documentary by the Oceanic Preservation Society, “Racing Extinction,” which was nominated for an Oscar.

Rally completed her studies in 2014 and became a wildlife veterinarian. She was on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, becoming acquainted with the rainforest destruction caused by palm oil producers, when she met her future husband, conservationist Shayne McGrath.

It was his work that prompted the couple’s move to Sonoma County. Rally said she expects to become active in local animal welfare efforts once she becomes familiar with them.

As devoted as she is to working with animals, she said it’s also essential to help educate and galvanize humans to be more conscious of the impact their food, clothing and entertainment choices have on animals.

“Any time they pay for anything,” Rally said, “they are voting for the kind of future they want.”

You can reach columnist Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 or chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.

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More African ivory being smuggled into China despite ban -report

NAIROBI, Oct 2 (Reuters) – More African ivory is being smuggled into China from Myanmar and Beijing’s ban on trade in ivory has failed to dampen imports, a report by conservation group Save the Elephants said on Tuesday.

Wildlife activists said they welcomed China’s ban this year on the ivory trade, arguing the step by a country that is the world’s largest importer and end user of tusks was vital to reducing the slaughter of the endangered species.

But it has not stopped what Save the Elephants called the “prolific growth” in trading in a town in the “Golden Triangle” area, where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet at the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong Rivers, south of China.

There has been a 60 percent growth in new ivory items seen for sale in the Myanmar-China border town of Mong La in the past three years and 90 percent of buyers are Chinese wishing to smuggle the ivory home, the report said.

It gave no separate figures for the period since the ban was introduced.

Myanmar has the world’s largest population of captive elephants, 5,000 in all, but trade in tusks at Mong La and elsewhere increasingly comes from elephants of African origin, the report said.

Myanmar’s government spokesman Zaw Htay was not immediately available for comment.

“Demand is still very high in China … Myanmar has over 2,000 kilometres of borderline with China which is very easy for smugglers to bring ivory across,” said researcher Lucy Vigne.

She co-authored the report with Esmond Bradley-Martin, a prominent American investigator of the illegal ivory and rhino horn trade who was found dead in his home in the Kenyan capital with an unexplained stab wound in his neck in February.

He had spent decades tracking the movement of animal products, mostly from Africa to markets in Asia. (Additional reporting by Poppy McPherson in Yangon Editing by Maggie Fick and Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

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