The police discover a wildlife trafficking case

Vu Thi Quyen, director of ENV (Education for Nature – Vietnam), said wildlife trafficking criminals try to escape agencies and the police everywhere, from giving customs officers money under the table to getting wildlife cleared at border gates to giving bribes to escape punishment. 

ENV received information from its sources that some households in Quynh Luu district of Nghe An province were illegally breeding bears in captivity. 

ENV staff came to the site and discovered that C, a man in Quynh Yen commune, was keeping five bears. The organization informed the local authorities and Nghe An Police about the discovery and sent video clips as evidence.

However, 10 days later, when ENV contacted the police, it heard that inspection tours were taken only to two legal bear breeding establishments, while the address ENV provided was not examined. When ENV staff returned to the address, they saw that it had been turned into a fowl farm.

In 2015 and 2016, EVN provided information and images to show the illegal breeding of tigers in Nghe An province. However, the violators were not punished.

“The cases show that wildlife trafficking rings still exist in the open air. The fight against wildlife trafficking crimes is not substantial,” an officer of ENV said.

Trinh Thi Long from WWF also said that the organization reported to local authorities about the existence of wild animal markets. However, local agencies replied that it is difficult to control the markets, and that many wild animals are not listed as rare and precious wildlife.

Quyen from ENV proposed to tighten the licensing to wildlife breeding establishments for commercial purposes, saying that in many cases, criminals hunted wildlife and then sold wild animals to the establishments. 

The owners of many establishments use the operation license as a mask to traffic wildlife. There should be a mechanism under which local authorities have to take responsibility to take control and stop the rare and precious animal trafficking in their localities.

Nghe An provincial officials, admitting that rare and precious wildlife species are in danger, have applied measures to protect and conserve animals.

Most recently, the province implemented an urgent elephant conservation plan with  budget of VND87 billion.

According to Tran Xuan Cuong, director of the Pu Mat National Park, his unit joined forces with agencies to list hunters in the entire buffer zone and asked the hunters to make a commitment to not trap and kill wild animals. 

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