The local media regularly report that police have detected many wildlife trafficking cases and rescued a large number of wild animals. However, it’s not enough. The tragedy continues in forests, luxury restaurants and cages.
Why are wild animals hunted? Many Vietnamese believe that products from wild animals are very good for their health and they are willing to pay high for these things. As a result, wild animals are hunted to satisfy what people believe are their needs.
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A wild cat escaped from a restaurant and ran on HCM City’s road in late 2009.
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For example, it is said that pangolin scales are an antidote to poison, pangolin meat and blood are good for unhealthy women and, especially, pangolin meat can strengthen men’s sexual power. There is no research work that proves this belief but many pangolins die for it. The 33 pangolins rescued at HCM City’s Tan Son Nhat Airport recently were fortunate; many, many more meet their death at restaurants.
The Government has tried to protect pangolins by placing them in group IIB in its Decree 32, a list of animals that may not be hunted or used for commercial purposes. However, the tragedy of pangolins hasn’t ended.
National park and biosphere boundaries don’t deter hunters
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Bears raised in cages can’t be returned to the forests because they don’t know how to seek food? Monkeys lose the ability to climb in trees after a long time in cages.
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Do Ngoc Tuan, a guard at the Cat Tien National Park, told VietNamNet that some days he has remove 400-500 traps in the forest. Hunter place so many traps in this national park are that they forget where some are. VietNamNet reporters were shown one trap holding the carcass of a big bird, pecked clean to its bones.
Over a thousand species of wild animals have been catalogued in Cat Tien NP, including 40 endangered species. Park managers said that it has become more difficult to protect them because many hunters from other regions have flocked to Cat Tien.
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A wild cat killed in Can Gio mangrove forest.
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HCM City’s Can Gio mangrove forest was recognized as a global biosphere in 2000. This forest is supposed to be a safe place for wild animals but while VietNamNet reporters were there, they saw a wild cat shot by a hunter. Forest rangers seized a gun and the injured cat, a member of a critically endangered species.
Caged animals can’t return to the forest
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Monkeys rescued from wildlife traffickers
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Bears raised in cages can’t be returned to the forests because they don’t know how to seek food? Monkeys lose the ability to climb in trees after a long time in cages.
Visiting the Bear Rescue Centre in Cat Tien National Park, VietNamNet reporters witnessed Tibetan bears trying to climb up onto an oil drum for exercise; Malayan bears searching for honey hidden in stumps or rearing to grab banana leaves dangled above their heads. These animals were being trained to recover their instincts after a long time in cages.
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A pangolin killed by trap in Cat Tien National Park.
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Tibetan and Malayan bears are endangered animals but they are “imprisoned” in farms to collect bear gall fluid, another highly-prized ‘aphrodasiac.’ After they are rescued from farms, they are brought to this station to be “trained” before being released to the forest. Nguyen Vu Khoi, director of the NGO Wildlife at Risk (WAR) in Vietnam, the sponsor of the Bear Rescue Centre, said that these bears have lost their wild instincts and they need to relearn how to climb a tree and move fast in order to survive in the wild.
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A trap holding the carcass of a big bird, pecked clean to its bones.
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The Bear Rescue Centre has fenced in one hectare of land in the Cat Tien National Park and released a dozen bears into this zone to help them get reacquainted with the forest. The centre staff hide food for them to seek out, so that the bears won’t starve to death when they return to nature.
However, some bears were worn out, because they didn’t know how to search for food. The muscles in their legs ha atrophied because they sat in cages for many years. The WAR staff worry that most of these bears are too “gentle”.
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The staff of a restaurant in HCM City killed a snake in front of customers.
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Some bears have kept at tourist sites to entertain visitors for so long that they became depressed or mentally ill. Some bears didn’t raise a paw to defend themselves when experts pretended to beat them.
A veterinarian at Cat Tien National Park led a VietNamNet reporter to visit a red-faced monkey which had been treated at the park. This monkey was as thin as a rake and had lost its hair in may body parts. Its eyes were clouded and it walked as though it is mentally ill. The doctor said that in nature, monkeys live in troupes, but this monkey is too weak to return to its free life.
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Two water-rats rescued by environment police in HCM City.
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Park workers said that many monkeys, after they are returned to health and set free, just follow the workers back to the rescue centre. “We don’t know whether they were afraid to return to the forest or they were attached to humans,” a worker said.
| Nguyen Vu Khoi, managing director of Wildlife At Risk (WAR) in Vietnam, talked with VietNamNet about wildlife smuggling in HCM City, a big market for wildlife products.
VietNamNet: What’s the situation at present?
Khoi: In the first three months of 2010, HCM City’s Cu Chi Wildlife Rescue Centre received 150 wild animals, including endangered species like king cobras, lorises and hornbills. These animals were seized by forest rangers and environmental police officers from smugglers and some pet breeders.
Since 2004, the volume of reptiles collected by this centre hasn’t increased but it doesn’t mean that wildlife trading has reduced.
It is clear that owners of restaurants understand that it is illegal to purchase wild animals so they don’t show such animals at their restaurants. They keep them hidden until they have interested customers.
VietNamNet: Is the City active in checking and punishing restaurants selling wild animals
Khoi: The HCM City Forest Protection Bureau has set up a mobile taskforce to inspect whether restaurants sell wild animals or not but this team has only three members, so just a handful of restaurants are checked and fined.
Meanwhile, professional gang networks supply wild animals to restaurants.
VietNamNet: Do you think its because no wildlife trading case in HCM City has been investigated thoroughly that wildlife trading networks persist?
Khoi: It is true that competent agencies have not succeeded in breaking up the rings that supply wild animals in large volume.
We should punish people who use products from wild animals. Those who consume wild animal products at restaurants are rich, people of high position. They know perfectly well that restaurants violate the rules when they sell wild animal products but they still consume these products.
It is useless to try to educate such people to stop eating wild animals. The best way is using laws, for example forcing them to work for the public, but Vietnam doesn’t have this sanction.
VietNamNet: After they are rescued from cages or restaurants, wild animals are released to forest but they can be caught again and brought back to restaurants. Does that mean your rescue activities are futile?
Khoi: We are unable to put tracking chips on released wild animals, but we try to release them to remote areas. It is up to the foreign rangers to protect wildlife.
The war against wildlife trading won’t be easily won. Wildlife protection should be taught in all our schools. Some international primary schools in HCM City bring their students to the Cu Chi Wildlife Rescue Centre to raise their awareness of the need to protect wildlife.
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Source: Vietnamnet Bridge
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