Well-meaning wildlife traffic? CITES weighs Taiping gorilla case

[Guest guest]

Is it just me, or do other people find it rather astounding that Malaysia

would think they'd be entitled to the offspring of the Taiping 4 gorillas,

since if they're sent to Pretoria Zoo and they breed, those babies would

then be legitimately " captive born " and thus ok for Taiping to get?

 

What about the slaughter involved in the families of the Taiping 4 gorillas

themselves and Taiping's role in this travesty??? That ANY ZOO, Pretoria

included, should benefit in any way - as Jane Goodall says - directly or

indirectly - is a frightening thought, made more frightening by the fact it

looks like it could happen, despite other alternatives.

 

Jane Dewar

Founder Gorilla Haven

 

 

 

> From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2002:

>

>

> " Well-meaning " wildlife traffic? CITES weighs Taiping gorilla case

>

> TAIPING, Malaysia; SANTIAGO, Chile--Few points on earth

> are farther apart, with more open sea and sky between them, than

> Taiping, Malaysia, home of the struggling Taiping Zoo, and

> Santiago, Chile, the host city for the 12th Convention on

> International Trade in Endangered Species Conference of the Parties,

> called CITES-COP 2002 for short.

> Yet the Taiping Zoo and CITES-COP 2002 had an awkward issue

> to deal with in mid-November, having to do with the zoo illegally

> buying baby gorillas in the name of conservation. The facts were

> less in dispute than the intentions behind the January 2002

> transaction--and the closest resemblance to common ground between the

> positions of Taiping and the CITES Secretariat, across 6,000 miles

> of Pacific Ocean, might have been the rolling deck of a Japanese

> whaling ship.

> The people involved on either side of the Taiping Zoo/CITES

> controversy over the origins and fate of four recently arrived baby

> gorillas all consider themselves animal-loving scientists. Taiping

> state science, environment, health and technology committee chair

> Ho Chang Wong professes bewilderment at the demands of primatologist

> Jane Goodall, among others, who on October 30 told Malaysian

> national science, technology, and environment minister Sari Law

> Hieng Ding that the four young gorillas should immediately be removed

> from the Taiping Zoo, and should be sent instead to a sanctuary in

> Africa.

> " I believe the Limbe Wildlife Centre in Cameroon would be a

> suitable home for these four gorillas, " Goodall said, pointing out

> that Limbe already has eight gorillas in residence.

> " No party should be allowed to profit either directly or

> indirectly from the gorillas, " Goodall continued. Goodall further

> asked Sari Law Hieng Ding to prosecute whoever was responsible for

> bringing the gorillas to Malaysia.

> Goodall amplified the previously expressed positions of CITES

> Secretariat senior enforcement officer John Sellar, the Great Ape

> Project, and International Primate Protection League founder Shirley

> McGreal, who first revealed that the four gorillas the Taiping Zoo

> bought from the Ibadan Zoo in Nigeria were not captive-born--and

> could not have been, since the Ibadan Zoo had only one adult gorilla.

> Taiping Zoo director Kevin Lazarus had represented the young

> gorillas as having been obtained through a species exchange program,

> in trade for Malayan tigers and sun bears.

> " It is learnt, " Malaysia Star reporters Raslan Baharom and

> Hilary Chiew wrote on October 12, " that the Taiping Municipal

> Council paid [the equivalent of $65,000 U.S.] to a Penang-based

> company, which has since ceased operations, to bring in the

> animals. "

> " When interviewed by Associated Press, " a Great Ape Project

> case summary said, " workers at the Ibadan Zoo readily admitted that

> the baby gorillas were caught in the forests of Cameroon, " probably

> by shooting their mothers plus any other adult family members who

> defended them.

> " We plan to breed the gorillas, not be cruel to them, "

> responded Ho Chang Wong to the Malaysia Star, seeming shocked to

> find himself viewed--at least by animal advocates--as no better than

> poachers and commercial traffickers.

> The Taiping Zoo built its most ambitious habitat yet to house

> the infant gorillas. Noting the ongoing destruction of wild gorillas

> and gorilla habitat by rainforest loggers, genocidal warfare, and

> bushmeat hunters, and believing a climate comfortable for orangutans

> might be comfortable for gorillas as well, Ho Chang Wong and the

> other Taiping officials responisble for the city zoo argue that their

> only aim all along was to help save a rare and fascinating

> species--and help save the zoo, too, which they acknowledge is in

> need of animals with drawing power, to help raise the revenue

> required to achieve world-class zoo standards.

> Acknowledging that the Taiping Zoo imported the gorillas from

> Nigeria with bogus papers, which Taiping Municipal Council president

> Jamalludin Amini Ahmad continued to deny, and seeking a satisfactory

> compromise, Sari Law Hieng Ding suggested on October 9 that the baby

> gorillas might be sent to the Pretoria Zoo in South Africa on an

> open-ended breeding loan, allowing the Taiping Zoo to import some of

> the offspring.

> That might save face for all parties, but would not actually

> serve the needs of the Taiping Zoo, and might not do much of

> substance for the gorillas either, as life behind bars in Pretoria

> might differ little from life right where they are.

> Despite repeated hints and promises during the next five

> weeks, the gorillas still had not gone anywhere when CITES-COP 2002

> convened.

> " Malaysia may try to be virtuous until after the CITES

> conference is over, " McGreal told ANIMAL PEOPLE, " and then find a

> way to keep the gorillas. "

> Jamalludin Amini Ahmad confirmed to Malaysia Star reporters

> Baharom and Chiew that the Malaysian Department of Wildlife and

> National Parks " is working hard to ensure that the animals are not

> taken back. "

> But giving up the gorillas in exchange for eventually

> obtaining some of their offspring seemed to be the most often

> anticipated outcome of ongoing discussions among the CITES

> Secretariat, conservation organizations, and zoo officials.

> Reported the Malaysia Star, " Dionysius Sharma, head of the

> Malaysian animal conservation unit for the World Wildlife Fund,

> feels there would be no problem with gorilla offspring coming to

> Malaysia, since they would be captive-born. "

> However, " Asked if having these rare gorillas would be a

> major commercial asset for the Taiping Zoo, " the Star continued,

> " Sharma said they would not be, 'since most people cannot tell the

> difference between gorillas and monkeys. To most people, monkeys

> are monkeys.' "

> While discussion about the future of the gorillas dragged on,

> some primatologists warned that gorillas have very low resistance to

> the relatively common Asian soil pathogen pseudomonas psuedomallei.

> The Singapore Zoo lost four gorillas to pseudomonas psuedomallei in

> 1983, and lost another to it in 1993. A sixth Singapore Zoo gorilla

> became infected, but was flown to the Rotterdam Zoo in the

> Netherlands for emergency care and survived.

>

> Whalers rebuked

>

> Like the illicit gorilla-buyers of Taiping, Japanese

> national director of fisheries research and environmental protection

> Masayuki Komatsu thinks of himself as a man of science, reason, and

> practical diplomacy --and seems to think he knows when to break the

> rules, or is above having to observe rules.

> On November 8, the very day that Japan asked CITES-COP to

> remove Bryde and minke whales from the list of internationally

> protected species, the five-vessel Japanese whaling fleet left the

> port of Shimonoseki to kill a self-assigned " research " quota of 400

> minke whales, within the nominally protected Southern Oceans Whale

> Sanctuary.

> The sanctuary was designated by a 1994 vote of the

> International Whaling Committee, which like CITES is a regulatory

> body created by the United Nations, and like most U.N. regulatory

> conventions is enforced chiefly by the goodwill of the members.

> Japan has conducted so-called " research whaling " with impunity within

> the Southern Oceans Whale Sanctuary every year since it was formally

> established, but the gesture of defiance this year may have been

> ill-timed.

> Before the day was over, Japan had lost the first two

> high-profile votes of CITES-COP 2002. The counts were 54-41 against

> downlisting minke whales and 63-43 against downlisting Bryde whales.

> Each downlisting proposal would have required the support of

> a two-thirds majority of the votes cast in order to pass.

> " It's an extremely sad day, because the delegates have not

> recognized that cultural diversity is just as important as

> biodiversity, " Japanese delegation member Glenn Hema told news

> media. " Japan doesn't tell other cultures what to do with their

> beef, " Hema insisted-- evidently forgetting the many trade wars

> fought at the Global Agreement on Trade and Tariffs and World Trade

> Organization levels over Japanese beef industry protectionism.

> " Japan simply does not want to have their culture put down, "

> agreed Japanese Whaling Association consultant Alan Mcnow to Graham

> Gori of Associated Press.

> Responded Humane Society of the U.S. international legal

> counsel Kitty Block, " In Japan's case, whaling is certainly

> cultural, but it is not done for subsistence. They are looking to

> open up commercial whaling. "

> Yet Japanese efforts to roll back global whale protection

> appear to be less about whales, despite the potential profits to be

> made from resuming commercial whaling, than about trying to

> forestall precedents for international regulation of fisheries.

> Observed World Wildlife Fund species programs director Sue

> Lieberman, " Japan wanted support, not only for its whale proposals,

> but also to try to block all proposals havng to do with fish,

> including sea horses. "

> Obliged to go to press three days before the decisions were

> made about ivory, in order to attend the International Companion

> Animal Welfare Conference in Prague, captival of the Czech Republic,

> ANIMAL PEOPLE could share with readers only the relatively limited

> outcomes of the first week of the two-week CITES-COP meeting. Few of

> the preliminary votes were the last word on any of the topics.

> But Japan, recruiting support from Canada, Cuba, and

> Russia, won a quiet but important November 7 vote against adding

> Black Sea bottlenose dolphins to CITES Appendix I, the list of

> species that are considered endangered and are therefore excluded

> from all international commerce. Threatened species, allowed in

> commerce with trade restrictions, are listed on Appendix II.

> Georgia, a former part of the Soviet Union, bordering on the Black

> Sea, proposed that Black Sea bottlenose dolphins should be

> protected, and received U.S. support. Needing 48 votes to pass,

> the proposal failed by getting just 40, with 31 " no " votes and 39

> abstentions.

> The threat to Canada, Cuba, and Russia if Black Seas

> bottlenose dolphins are put on Appendix I is that other bottlenose

> dolphins might also be listed as lookalike species. That in turn

> might cut into their profits as the nations most involved in

> supplying marine mammals to exhibition and swim-with-dolphins

> facilities.

> Green sea turtles won a round on November 8, however, when

> a British proposal to allow the Cayman Islands to sell products from

> hatchery-reared green sea turtle specimens drew only 38 votes, with

> 24 negatives and 48 abstentions.

>

> Awaiting ivory vote

>

> The much anticipated CITES-COP 2002 votes on elephant ivory

> trafficking were scheduled for the second half of the conference to

> avoid walkouts and deadlocks during the first half.

> How the ivory battle would come out was anyone's guess.

> Twenty-two African nations agreed at a regional caucus just before

> CITES-COP 2002 convened to support an amendment to the 1989 global

> ban on ivory trafficking which would allow Botswana, Namibia, South

> Africa, and Zimbabwe to sell their accumulated ivory stockpiles,

> and would also allow them to resume selling some ivory on a regular

> basis. All four nations claim to have large and growing elephant

> populations, and to have poaching under control, though the

> Zimbabwean numbers seem especially suspect in view of the invasions

> of wildlife habitat in recent years by mobs of armed and economically

> desperate " war veterans. "

> Leading the opposition to the proposals issued by Botwana,

> Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe are India, Kenya, China, and

> the U.S.

> India, Kenya, and China are each battling poachers to

> retain fractions of the wild elephant populations that they had just

> a few decades ago. Like the U.S., each is also worried about the

> involvement of al Qaida and other Islamic fundamentalist militias in

> the clandestine ivory traffic. The elephants of Tsavo National Park

> in Kenya, in particular, have been hard hit over the years by

> Somali poaching gangs with direct links to the al Qaida network.

> India and China are concerned that allowing any legal commerce in

> ivory at all could encourage insurgents--such as the al Qaida

> affiliates believed to be operating in Jammu-and-Kashmir--to

> exterminate wild elephants to buy arms.

> U.S. President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and

> Secretary of State Colin Powell, trophy hunters all and longtime

> members of Safari Club International, were until September 11, 2001

> seen as likely to favor ivory commerce proposals that might encourage

> trophy hunting as a mechanism of conservation funding.

> Post-September 11, their priorities seem to have shifted,

> at least for this CITES-COP session.

> British Broadcasting Corporation correspondent Peter Greste

> reported on November 10 that, " National delegations and

> non-governmental organisations complain that this year's CITES-COP

> meeting is among the most politicised ever. With allegations of

> corruption, bribery, espionage and threats, "

> --

> Merritt Clifton

> Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

> P.O. Box 960

> Clinton, WA 98236

>

> Telephone: 360-579-2505

> Fax: 360-579-2575

> E-mail: anmlpepl

> Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

>

> [ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing

> original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide,

> founded in 1992. Our readership of 30,000-plus includes the

> decision-makers at more than 9,000 animal protection organizations.

> We have no alignment or affiliation with any other entity.]

>