Environmentalist caught with protected species

[Guest guest]

http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/29Nov2002_news23.html

 

Friday 29 November 2002

WILDLIFE

 

Environmentalist caught with protected species

 

Over 100 deer seized from illegal farm

 

Supamart Kasem

 

An environmentalist in Phop Phra district has been

charged with illegal possession of 40 protected wild

animals.

 

Forestry officials raided the Private Gibbon

Conservation Project at Highland Farm on the Mae

Sot-Umphang highway on Wednesday afternoon. They found

36 gibbons, four monkeys and eight peacocks. Gibbons

and monkeys are protected animals.

 

Farm owner Poranee Chotiros, 60, said that she and her

late husband William Emeral Deters had moved from the

United States to Thailand 11 years ago. They set up

the farm to raise disabled and sick animals abandoned

by other people. The charge carries a maximum penalty

of four years in prison and/or a 40,000-baht fine.

 

The rescued animals were to be sent to a wildlife

breeding station in Phetchabun province or the Huay

Khakhaeng wildlife reserve, a spokesman said.

 

In Kanchanaburi province, more than 100 deer have been

seized from an illegal deer farm. Forestry officials

raided the farm in Tha Muang district yesterday

following a tip-off the farm was illegally selling

deer antlers. They found 126 sambar deer.

 

The animals were impounded but still left at the farm

under the supervision of a kamnan because there was

nowhere else to put them. Farm manager Decha

Chuenpreecha was arrested. Farm owner Somboon

Ungtrakul, who remained at large yesterday, had

earlier told police by phone that he had no official

permit to run the farm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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