Quang Tri police save nine trafficked pangolins (Photo: laodong.vn)
Hanoi (VNA) – Up to 48 wild animals were successfully rescued in December 2019 thanks to close coordination between Education for Nature – Vietnam (ENV) and relevant agencies.
The animals included 20 monkeys, 13 pangolins, eight mountain turtles, three wildcats, and one python.
On December 17, police of Cam Lo district in the central province of Quang Tri have seized nine Sunda pangolins weighing 34.9kg in total while the endangered animals were being trafficked in the locality.
Nguyen Thi Thuy, a 50-year-old resident in Khe Sanh town of Quang Tri’s Huong Hoa district, was one of the two persons on the vehicle. Thuy said she had bought the animals from some ethnic minority people in Huong Hoa and hired driver Dinh Van Thai to transport to the province’s Dong Ha city to sell.
The pangolin is one of the most trafficked mammals in the world.
Sunda pangolins are listed in group 1B of Vietnam’s Red Data Book, which means they are in danger of becoming extinct and are protected from being exploited or used for commercial purposes.
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Vietnam has become a “hotspot” of wildlife poaching and trafficking. Statistics show that the number of wild species and their populations in Vietnam are declining sharply.
In the IUCN Red List updated in July 2019, the number of species classified as “near threatened” and above in Vietnam is 700. Surveys in 2016 also proposed 1,211 species, including 600 plant and fungus species and 611 animal species, be included in the Red Data Book, much higher than the 2007 assessment./.
