KARACHI, Aug 11: Four highly-publicised cases of trafficking protected wildlife species have been disposed of by the Sindh Wildlife Department (SWD) with the mere imposition of fines and institution of court cases, but the action against the offenders has not even stretched to the confiscation of the animals, Dawn has learnt.
The authorities’ concern about the increasing incidence of wildlife smuggling is evident from the size of the fines, which are very low given the scale of the traffickers’ operations, and the fact that the offenders have been allowed to keep the illegally-imported animals.
The animals involved include lions, tigers and leopards – some of which are endangered and protected species – that can pose a danger to human life and which the law therefore requires to be kept in secure environments such as zoos or wildlife sanctuaries. By failing to confiscate the animals, the SWD has in effect allowed the traffickers to potentially put the citizenry in danger.
In two of the smuggling cases, punishment was limited to the imposition of fines, said highly placed sources, while the other two cases have been challaned in court.
The animals were smuggled into the country through Karachi’s Quaid-i-Azam International Airport. The sources claimed that the SWD directed its attention towards the matter only after the matter was taken up by the press. Subsequent investigations were conducted at a slow pace and the final action (the imposition of fines and sending cases on to the courts) was taken against the wildlife traffickers only when the federal government’s National Council for the Conservation of Wildlife (NCCW) put its foot down and refused to issue any import permits to the traffickers until the earlier cases in which they were implicated were disposed of.
The NCCW’s stance was prompted by a concern for public safety. Fearing that newly-rich or status-conscious citizens might keep such dangerous animals in their houses in order to show off, the Council wanted to know why such a large number of carnivorous wild animals were being smuggled into the country.
The fear proved justified recently when two lions created a panic when they escaped from their cages and roamed about loose on the streets of PECHS. It is not known whether these animals were amongst those smuggled into the country in the aforementioned cases or whether they were part of some other contraband consignment. However, they were being kept illegally since big cats cannot be kept at home. Despite this, the SWD failed to confiscate the animals after they were caught and they were instead returned to the owner’s possession.
Repeat offenders
These four wildlife trafficking cases were investigated by Rashed Ahmad of the SWD, and were disposed of by Sindh Wildlife Conservator Ghulam Rasool Channa.
Two of the cases concern the company which maintains offices in Defence. In the first incident, the company smuggled a pair of Royal Bengal tigers from South Africa using fake documents purporting to be NCCW-issued certificates. The illegality came to light when the secretariat of the Geneva-based Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) approached Pakistan for the verification of the documents apparently issued by the NCCW.
The federal government body said that the documents were forged, so the tiger consignment was intercepted when it landed at Karachi’s Jinnah terminal. However, the trafficker pulled influential strings and claimed that the tigers were for his Gadap-based “research centre”. Despite the efforts made by the SWD and the NCCW, the animals were allowed to enter the country.
Sindh Wildlife Conservator Ghulam Rasoon Channa said that a case (FOR 12/389, the SWD’s equivalent to the police FIR) was registered against the traffickers and a fine totalling at Rs103,200 was recovered from them.
The same company also smuggled six lions into the country without the mandatory permissions / no-objection certificates. These animals were taken to its “research centre”, which is located off the Super Highway, either in connivance with or owing to the negligence of the SWD and the customs authorities.
After the traffickers operations were exposed, the SWD registered a case (FOR 15/389) and, according to Mr Channa, a fine of Rs241,800 was recovered from them.
As reported in this newspaper earlier, the trafficker’s operations caused Pakistan some humiliation in the international community since after becoming aware of the smuggling of the Bengal tigers from its territory, the government of South Africa demanded that the animals be returned.
Two companies, one illegality
The third wildlife trafficking case disposed of by the SWD concerns a zoological supplies company which brought into the country five tigers (Panthera Tigris) and four lions (Panthere Leo) from the Czech Republic.
The consignment landed at the Quaid-i-Azam International Airport in the first week of June last year and was cleared by the Customs staff although the importers did not have the requisite permissions and no-objection certificates. The SWD came to know of the matter once it was reported in the media and registered a case (FOR 22/389), which was sent to the courts.
Another company also smuggled two tigers and three lions from the Czech Republic without the necessary permissions and no-objection certificates and managed to remove the contraband consignment from Karachi airport. After the case was reported in the media, the SWD became aware of the matter and registered a case (FOR 31/289), which was sent to the courts.
According to Sindh Wildlife Conservator Channa, the two companies are owned and operated by the same person and function from the same office in Federal B Area.
Sources informed Dawn that one of the companies also attempted to smuggle in another consignment comprised of three tigers, a lion and a leopard, but by then the SWD had become cautious and the contraband assignment was intercepted. The company was made to obtain the requisite permissions, which he managed within a few days, until which time the animals were kept at the airport.
Danger to the public
Wildlife trafficking cases are directly linked to the unregulated maintenance of potentially dangerous animals in private homes. When it refused to issue import permits for carnivorous animals until earlier wildlife trafficking cases had been disposed of, the NCCW expressed the fear that any carelessness on part of the big cats’ owners could put the citizenry in danger.
This concern proved justified recently when two lions escaped from their owner’s house and created panic in PECHS. Terrified neighbours called the police and the zoo, but the animals were returned to the owner after being captured. The SWD subsequently registered a case (FOR 36/389) against the occupant of the house from where the lions escaped. However, the SWD failed to confiscate the animals.
This decision seems at odds with another case concerning the escape some time ago of a pair of chimpanzees, in which the surviving animal was confiscated. Having escaped from their owner’s house near Tipu Sultan Road, one of the apes was shot dead by a policeman while the other was taken to the city zoo.
Pointing out the dangers inherent in allowing wild animals to be kept in private homes, conservationists urge the authorities to confiscate the illegally-imported big cats and return them to the countries from which they were brought – in the aforementioned cases, South Africa and the Czech Republic. This move, they argue, will deter others from venturing into this highly-lucrative business.
Meanwhile, wildlife traffickers must be awarded exemplary punishment and fines that are prescribed by law.
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