Friday, 04 December 2009 15:04 Kim Yuthana and Mom Kunthear
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POLICE have seized nearly 2 tonnes of wild tortoises and snakes they believe were destined to have been smuggled into Vietnam, Kandal authorities said on Thursday.
The animals were seized on Wednesday near the Chhrey Thom border checkpoint, said Kandal province Police Chief Eav Chamroeun, who called the find the biggest single case of animal smuggling provincial officials had ever seen.
It is believed the alleged smugglers brought the reptiles from around the Tonle Sap River and intended to ship them by boat to the neighbouring country. Eav Chamroeun said police have arrested two men caught driving the boat.
The catch included a shipment of elongated tortoises, which are listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list of threatened species, according to Lesley Perlman, programme manager for the group Wildlife Alliance.
Former prosecutor Huot Hy said that being convicted of smuggling endangered animals is punishable by five to 10 years in prison.
The seized animals have since been released at a “secret location”, said Prum Nol, an official with the Forestry Administration’s Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Ecstasy Factories Destroyed in Cambodian Rainforests
An antidrug task force led by Wildlife Alliance and Fauna and Flora International, working in close concert with forest rangers from Cambodia’s armed services and Ministry of Environment completed an arduous 10 day anti-ecstasy production operation on Wednesday, successfully destroying 10 illegal safrole distillation vats operated by local drug cartels in one of Cambodia’s most impenetrable and remote jungle areas in the country’s southwest Cardamom Mountains.
The distillation vats destroyed at the various jungle sites were capable of producing over 540 gallons of safrole oil, a key precursor ingredient to the methamphetamine drug MDMA, more commonly known as ecstasy. After being distilled and synthesized into powder the oil could potentially have produced thousands of ecstasy pills with street values well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
A Wildlife Alliance sponsored ranger team from Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment and managed by Fauna and Flora International, came across the ecstasy labs several months earlier during a routine foot patrol through Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary 200 miles northwest of Phnom Penh.
Further aerial patrols and ground missions confirmed an extensive network of drug distilleries prompting a three month investigation in preparation for the two week long jungle operation to raid the ecstasy producing drug labs.
Wildlife Alliance Technical Advisor and former French Legionnaire, Eduard Lefter, along with counterparts from Fauna and Flora International, helped plan the complex and dangerous raid with Cambodian Forest Rangers. According to Lefter the team spent over 10 days in the jungle battling leeches and the resulting wound infections, as well as skirting landmines which made forward progress extremely difficult. By the end of the mission several members of the joint task force were suffering from dehydration due to dwindling water supplies. Navigation using GPS units proved very unreliable when confronted with the difficult jungle terrain and resulted in prolonged delays without water or food access.
The teams also carried explosive ordnance in the form of landmines, provided by the Cambodian Military, to destroy the ecstasy labs and safrole distillation equipment.
The distillation vats destroyed at the various jungle sites were capable of producing over 540 gallons of safrole oil, a key precursor ingredient to the methamphetamine drug MDMA, more commonly known as ecstasy. After being distilled and synthesized into powder the oil could potentially have produced thousands of ecstasy pills with street values well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
A Wildlife Alliance sponsored ranger team from Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment and managed by Fauna and Flora International, came across the ecstasy labs several months earlier during a routine foot patrol through Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary 200 miles northwest of Phnom Penh.
Further aerial patrols and ground missions confirmed an extensive network of drug distilleries prompting a three month investigation in preparation for the two week long jungle operation to raid the ecstasy producing drug labs.
Wildlife Alliance Technical Advisor and former French Legionnaire, Eduard Lefter, along with counterparts from Fauna and Flora International, helped plan the complex and dangerous raid with Cambodian Forest Rangers. According to Lefter the team spent over 10 days in the jungle battling leeches and the resulting wound infections, as well as skirting landmines which made forward progress extremely difficult. By the end of the mission several members of the joint task force were suffering from dehydration due to dwindling water supplies. Navigation using GPS units proved very unreliable when confronted with the difficult jungle terrain and resulted in prolonged delays without water or food access.
The teams also carried explosive ordnance in the form of landmines, provided by the Cambodian Military, to destroy the ecstasy labs and safrole distillation equipment.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Sneak Preview of "100 Heartbeats" Jeff Corwin and Wildlife Alliance in Cambodia - Watch it Nov 22nd
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Labels:
cambodia,
illegal logging,
Jeff Corwin,
wildlife alliance
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Ecotourism in the Cardamoms
Wildlife Alliance's Community Based Ecotourism Project posted by responsiblenomad.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Hard to Bear
Lesley Perlman is Wildlife Alliance's Country Program Manager in Cambodia. Just a few days ago she joined the WRRT to investigate a grisly report of two Asiatic Black Bear cubs who had been snared by an illegal poacher in Cambodia's Battambang province.
This is her account.
That morning we started at 5am which means in the truck and bouncing along the roads outside of Battambang at 5:05. We were in three trucks with about 12 people, including 2 foreigners, myself and the Freeland Legal Advisor, who had considerable experience as a former US Fish and Wildlife Service Agent. So we crashed in what looked like just a normal house in village-life-Cambodia. An older woman was sitting with a few of her grandchildren outside in the early morning. The oldest boy was in his teens. The team found the 2 bears which were in this wagon behind the house with a table thrown over it and tied down. You could see that they both had injuries to their front paws from being caught in a snare and were licking them constantly. They were obviously scared, and one had enough energy to growl at us, which was heartening at least.
After what seemed like endless dithering around, and the arrival of the commune chief and a local military policeman, we could finally treat the bears (though of course, still waiting on other legal red tape like a search warrant and the prosecutor’s approval – I don’t understand the whole process and not sure that I need to, but it was terribly time consuming and unclear).
The information we had received had alerted us to the fact that the bears could be injured so we had brought a vet with us, who was able to sedate them using darts. Just another reminder that though they were injured, weak and still pretty young, they were still very much wild animals, so care needed to be taken. The bears passed out then they were taken from the wagon to a table in the backyard (that just 15 minutes before one of the girls was doing dishes on). Then the vet was able to see the bears and assess the condition they were in. Quite bad, I would say, and it was one of the worst things I have seen, though admittedly I have led a nice sheltered life. But each one had lost a front foot and there was bone sticking out. They had been sadly licking the wounds before in the wagon but now were just passed out lying on their sides kind of whining/snoring - a haunting sound I won't forget that increased in frequency and volume when the vet was clearing the wounds out. They also had other injuries on the back feet to, perhaps from trying to get out of the snare. Just awful!
The vet, aided by one of the members of the WRRT, Heng Kimchhay, who had some vet training, cleaned them up, gave them antibiotics, gently wrapped the injured limbs and then put them in the cage so we could take them away. The vet said they were about 4 months old. The female was quite a bit weaker, injured perhaps up to a week earlier and had been living, penned up, with little food, little water and no medical care for that long after losing a foot! He didn’t know if she would make it. The other seemed to get his strength back quickly once he was in the cage. I kept poking bananas through the cage to feed him. He ate about 5 or 6 really quickly and then was growling at the people around him, which was certainly encouraging. The team kept saying, "tomadaa" ,which means normal or regular, as he was beginning to exhibit normal behavior. I don't think I've ever been so happy to see a growling bear in my life!
Finally, three members of the team came back with a warrant issued from the prosecutor's office in Battambang and the bears were then taken in one truck to Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center. Now, they are both doing ok, but the weaker one is still teetering on the edge of life. They have to sedate them every couple of days so they can fully clean the wounds.
Please support our wildlife rescue efforts to protect and rescue endangered and threatened wildlife that fall victim to the illegal wildlife trade and illegal poaching. Every dollar counts, as does every animal. The rescue of these two bears would not be possible without the support of our donors. Thank you.
This is her account.
That morning we started at 5am which means in the truck and bouncing along the roads outside of Battambang at 5:05. We were in three trucks with about 12 people, including 2 foreigners, myself and the Freeland Legal Advisor, who had considerable experience as a former US Fish and Wildlife Service Agent. So we crashed in what looked like just a normal house in village-life-Cambodia. An older woman was sitting with a few of her grandchildren outside in the early morning. The oldest boy was in his teens. The team found the 2 bears which were in this wagon behind the house with a table thrown over it and tied down. You could see that they both had injuries to their front paws from being caught in a snare and were licking them constantly. They were obviously scared, and one had enough energy to growl at us, which was heartening at least.
After what seemed like endless dithering around, and the arrival of the commune chief and a local military policeman, we could finally treat the bears (though of course, still waiting on other legal red tape like a search warrant and the prosecutor’s approval – I don’t understand the whole process and not sure that I need to, but it was terribly time consuming and unclear).
The information we had received had alerted us to the fact that the bears could be injured so we had brought a vet with us, who was able to sedate them using darts. Just another reminder that though they were injured, weak and still pretty young, they were still very much wild animals, so care needed to be taken. The bears passed out then they were taken from the wagon to a table in the backyard (that just 15 minutes before one of the girls was doing dishes on). Then the vet was able to see the bears and assess the condition they were in. Quite bad, I would say, and it was one of the worst things I have seen, though admittedly I have led a nice sheltered life. But each one had lost a front foot and there was bone sticking out. They had been sadly licking the wounds before in the wagon but now were just passed out lying on their sides kind of whining/snoring - a haunting sound I won't forget that increased in frequency and volume when the vet was clearing the wounds out. They also had other injuries on the back feet to, perhaps from trying to get out of the snare. Just awful!
The vet, aided by one of the members of the WRRT, Heng Kimchhay, who had some vet training, cleaned them up, gave them antibiotics, gently wrapped the injured limbs and then put them in the cage so we could take them away. The vet said they were about 4 months old. The female was quite a bit weaker, injured perhaps up to a week earlier and had been living, penned up, with little food, little water and no medical care for that long after losing a foot! He didn’t know if she would make it. The other seemed to get his strength back quickly once he was in the cage. I kept poking bananas through the cage to feed him. He ate about 5 or 6 really quickly and then was growling at the people around him, which was certainly encouraging. The team kept saying, "tomadaa" ,which means normal or regular, as he was beginning to exhibit normal behavior. I don't think I've ever been so happy to see a growling bear in my life!
Finally, three members of the team came back with a warrant issued from the prosecutor's office in Battambang and the bears were then taken in one truck to Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center. Now, they are both doing ok, but the weaker one is still teetering on the edge of life. They have to sedate them every couple of days so they can fully clean the wounds.
Please support our wildlife rescue efforts to protect and rescue endangered and threatened wildlife that fall victim to the illegal wildlife trade and illegal poaching. Every dollar counts, as does every animal. The rescue of these two bears would not be possible without the support of our donors. Thank you.
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