PESHAWAR, Dec 6: Officials of the Wildlife Department seized hides and parts of animals declared endangered under the Wild Life Act and arrested two men, sources told Dawn here on Thursday.

The officials recovered turtle parts from the vehicle of a trader — Kalim, son of Qaiser and resident of Nowshera district. They registered an FIR against the trader.

Divisional Forest Officer (Wildlife) Mohammad Israr told Dawn that turtles were caught by the people trading in turtle parts. They also bought turtles from locals for Rs380 per kilogramme and later sent them to Lahore and Karachi where the parts were sold for at least Rs2500 per kilogramme. Some of these parts were exported to Thailand, China and some other countries.

In another raid, the officials confiscated hides of some other endangered animals from a taxi near Shami Road. The seizure involved hides of leopard, wolf and deer.

The officials said they had been informed that hides of endangered animals were being taken to a house in Namak Mandi area of Peshawar for sale. The officials, however, spotted a taxi carrying rare hides and arrested a man involved in the business.

Gul Malook, son of Khan Mohammad and resident of Namak Mandi, was arrested and an FIR was registered against him.

The sale of parts of animals declared endangered under the Wild Life

Act is illegal and violators could be punished up to two years of imprisonment.

Leopards, ibex, wolves, markhor and deer were found in the upper parts of the NWFP, Kashmir and Afghanistan where people hunted them and traders sold them in a clandestine manner for high prices to selected customers, DFO Mohammad Israr said.