Thailand cracks down on exotic-food trade

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http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2003/12/01/2003077937

Thailand cracks down on exotic-food trade

 

VICIOUS PROFIT:: Thailand has long been a hub for trade in endangered

animals, but police are now beginning to crack down on smugglers and illegal

restaurants

 

THE OBSERVER , BANGKOK

Monday, Dec 01, 2003,Page 5

 

Piles of fresh tiger meat alongside the paws of slaughtered bears found by

Thai police during a raid on a suburban Bangkok home have turned the

spotlight on Thailand's pivotal role in Asia's huge, lucrative and cruel

trade in exotic, often endangered animals.

 

Almost more surprising than what police found was the raid itself -- one of

a series of now almost daily operations against wildlife traffickers. For

decades, Thailand's heritage of teak forests and richly varied wildlife has

fallen prey to the plunder of grasping politicians, military officers and

ruthless entrepreneurs, largely ignored by government.

 

But the present government, led by former billionaire tycoon Thaksin

Shinawatra, has changed course and launched a crackdown on the trade with

the declared aim of cleaning it up by year's end.

 

The raid on the home of a known dealer in the Nonthaburi area of Bangkok

makes clear just how challenging an undertaking this may prove. Police found

more than 100 animals, alive and dead, including six live tigers -- some

appeared to have been bred in captivity for commercial use.

 

They found the skins of several other tigers and three stuffed baby tigers.

Alongside the paws of at least four bears was the skull of a rare Vietnamese

saola deer and from the deep freeze they recovered the body of a baby

orangutan smuggled from Indonesia.

 

Thailand has for years served as a major conduit for a trade

conservationists estimate is worth billions of dollars a year -- surpassed

in value only by the trade in drugs and arms. Sometimes these trades

overlap. Officials have found drugs stored in the stomachs of animals and

they suspect that the vehicles which carry smuggled animals in one direction

sometimes carry narcotics on the return journey.

 

Thailand is a key transit route for animals captured in Indonesia, Malaysia,

Burma and Cambodia. Most are destined for China to satisfy demand for

traditional medicines believed to enhance health and sexual potency.

 

" The trade has been on an upswing in the last three to four years, mainly

due to the demand of a growing middle class in China for certain animal

products, " said Steven Galster, director of WildAid's office in Thailand.

 

Officials say that in just seven months last year they intercepted more than

21,000 reptiles and 1,800 mammals being transported across Thailand. But

increasing seizures are little deterrent to traders who can earn thousands

of dollars from a single tiger skin but who face a maximum penalty of

US$1,000 or four months in prison -- a sentence not yet imposed.

 

The Nonthaburi raid also pointed to a thriving underground business catering

to the appetites of visitors who join tours to Southeast Asia specifically

to eat the meat of rare species. Chinese and Koreans join tours to Thailand

where middlemen guide them to secret restaurants where their agents

guarantee the freshness of the product.

 

Preparing food to the standard required by these high-po the animals.

Tradition has it that adrenalin generated by pain and fear enhance the

quality of a bear's gall bladder or its paws.

 

In some instances, says Galster, paws are sliced off live bears. In other

cases they may be tossed into a steeply-sided and flooded pit where they

struggle for hours before drowning.

 

The impact of the demand for animals is equally traumatic on the jungles of

Asia. Exotic species are being plundered at a rate far beyond anything the

environment can sustain. Twenty-five tonnes of turtles leave the Sumatra

every week. " There are 6,000 orangutans left in Sumatra and they are losing

a thousand a year, " said Galster.

 

" Many species have been pushed to the edge and if things don't change they

will be extinct in the next few years, " said David Shepard of Traffic, a

non-governmental organization monitoring the trade. " Animals like the

pangolin could disappear before we know anything about them. "

 

Conservationists are hoping Thailand's crackdown could start to curb the

trade. Raids are targeting not just traders' homes but also the zoos and

farms owned by businessmen whose connections had helped to fend off

suspicions they were fronts for illegal trading.

 

Last week police moved in on Si Racha tiger farm, ranked among the biggest

in the world, which supplies live tigers to China. Police said they found

several hundred animals that owners could not properly account for.

 

Thailand's Environment Minister now says he will seek harsher penalties for

smuggling exotic species and one senior official this month called for the

death penalty for animal traffickers.

 

Skeptics fear the crackdown will be short-lived.