Dept monitoring cyberspace for wildlife trade

KOTA KINABALU: The State Wildlife Department (SWD) is continuously monitoring for online sales of protected wildlife animals, animal parts and products.

SWD Director Augustine Tuuga said the department has dedicated manpower, assisted by several related non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to do the monitoring on such online sale.

“Yes, online sales of protected wildlife animals, animal parts and products are quite serious but not rampant. We have people monitoring online sales of wildlife animals and products. We are also assisted by several NGOs on this.

“We have apprehended several people and almost all cases have been charged in court and handed penalties,” he said.

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On foreigners coming to Sabah specifically to hunt illegally, Tuuga said none have been caught so far but the department have several cases of foreign plantation workers apprehended for poaching, but hunting the ordinary wildlife animals such wild boar and deer.

Tuuga said this when asked to comment on a report by Traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring network, that online trade of wildlife is becoming popular in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

Traffic Southeast Asia Director Kanitha Krishnasamy, said online wildlife trade activities have been a challenge for the wildlife enforcement when presenting an overview of the bear trade in Asia at the 2nd International Symposium on Sun Bear Conservation and Management recently organised by SWD, Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC) and Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) here.

It was held in conjunction with a meeting by technical working group, consisting of SWD, Sabah Forestry Department, Sabah Foundation, BSBBC, DGFC, WWF Malaysia, TRAFFIC, Animals Asia, Free the Bears and Sunway University, to formulate the Sabah sun bear action plan.

Krishnasamy also said there were 694 seizures made involving 1,820 bears in 14 countries throughout Asia in between 2012 and August this year.

While in Southeast Asia, she said there were 151 seizures including 17 in Malaysia and 50 per cent of all these seizures involved sun bears.

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There were also increasing number of Vietnamese caught for illegal poaching in Malaysia, she said.

The Government and NGO officials involved also discussed on strategies to better deal with online wildlife trade after her presentations.

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