Wildlife Smuggling

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EXPOSITORY ESSAY Length: 600 words t0 700 Read all of the following articles on the topic of wildlife smuggling. Write an expository essay using the ideas and information in the material provided. It is very important that you write about the topic in your own words and do not copy anything directly from the articles unless you quote the information. If you use quotations or statistics or other specific information from the articles you must acknowledge your source and provide in-text references. You do not need to include a bibliography at the end of the essay. You must refer only to the ideas and information in the articles. You should not read any additional material for this essay. You should attempt to refer to all of the articles in your essay rather than rely on only one or two articles. You may have more than four body paragraphs in your essay. Use direct and indirect quation The introduction and conclusion should not contain any reference For example each paragraph should depend on many items not only on one articles (each paragraph contains information from the different articles) should just depend on the items no more extra information ( no information from research) the items :

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EXPOSITORY ESSAY

Length: 600 words t0 700

Read all of the following articles on the topic of wildlife smuggling. Write an expository essay using the ideas and information in the material provided. It is very important that you write about the topic in your own words and do not copy anything directly from the articles unless you quote the information. If you use quotations or statistics or other specific information from the articles you must acknowledge your source and provide in-text references. You do not need to include a bibliography at the end of the essay.

You must refer only to the ideas and information in the articles. You should not read any additional material for this essay. You should attempt to refer to all of the articles in your essay rather than rely on only one or two articles. You may have more than four body paragraphs in your essay. Use direct and indirect quation

The introduction and conclusion should not contain any reference

For example each paragraph should depend on many items not only on one articles (each paragraph contains information from the different articles)

PROFITS IN PLUNDER – CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL

The Age, September 17, 2005

Wildlife smuggling is on the march. Australian species are favoured targets and the internet makes it easier, reports Richard Baker.

KAZUTAKA Ogawa wrapped 24 oblong turtles and a solitary shingle-back lizard tightly in socks, shoved them inside a box and posted it to Japan. Then the wildlife smuggler boarded a flight at Perth and returned to his homeland. His journey was far more comfortable than that he had planned for the creatures he had captured in the outback.

All things going well, his package stood to make him a tidy profit on the illegal wildlife market. One shingle-back lizard can fetch $4000 and the turtles, from the southern wetlands of Western Australia, can bring $1400 each.

But Ogawa, who left Perth in March last year, never received his package. The big cardboard box had aroused the suspicions of the Australia Post workers. Customs Service officials were called and the animals discovered. Already 13 turtles were dead.

Ogawa was later identified as the culprit, but he was long gone.

All over the world, people like Ogawa are raiding forests, fields, oceans and rivers, profiting from illegally obtained animals and plants. With the rise of the internet, the problem is only getting worse.

Interpol estimates the annual black market trade in wildlife is worth more than $10 billion, ranking only behind drug trafficking and arms dealing. Europe, North America, Japan and China are the biggest markets. Authorities uncover only about 10 percent of smuggling attempts.

The Australian Federal Police believe more than 5 million birds, 30,000 primates and 15 million furs, form part of the international illegal wildlife trade each year. “Wildlife smuggling is a major international problem,” Australian Customs manager, Richard Janeczko, told The Age. “The fact that there is a huge amount of money involved means that people will continue to try to do it…and some of the methods are quite cruel”.

On the internet, just about any animal can be obtained for the right price. Tigers, parrots, orang-utans, sea horses, snakes and giraffes are all traded online. Some of these animals may be for show but thousands more are sought for the supposed medicinal benefits offered by their body parts.

Animals are also facing increasingly sophisticated smugglers. Body vests have been developed so bird and reptile eggs get the required body heat. Birds have been stuffed in tubes, fish hidden in the bags of airlines staff and snakes in pantyhose worn under trousers. Australia, with its unique flora and fauna, is a popular haunt for poachers and smugglers. Reptiles and birds are particularly prized. Breeding pairs of black cockatoos can fetch$56,000 in the US. Galahs will bring up to $2000. Spiders, too, are popular.

The figures suggest trafficking is on the rise, with 33 smuggling cases during the first eight months of this year, compared with just 26 in 2004.“We believe people are regrouping to find new ways of smuggling,” Mr Janeczko said.

Last year, Customs took part in the biggest ever operation in Australia to identify wildlife smugglers. More than 1000 birds, believed to be worth more than $1 million on the black market, were seized in raids across four states. These cases are now in the courts. The raids also brought corruption-charges against a WA wildlife officer who is accused of tipping off smugglers.

The wildlife traffickers

By Lorna Edwards, Sydney Morning Herald, March 24, 2007

Dealers in drugs and guns are being attracted to animal smuggling by lighter penalties and big profits. Lorna Edwards reports.

The rendezvous point could be an airport car park. The supplier – or a middleman – will meet the “mule” to deliver a load of Australia’s precious wildlife plucked illegally from the bush. The eggs of rare, and even common, birds will be taken from an incubator powered by the car’s cigarette lighter and concealed in a purpose-made body vest containing rows of tiny pockets.

The courier then has only to get through customs without attracting any unwanted attention. For their part of the deal, the courier gets a free international flight, perhaps with spending money. At the time of transport, the eggs are usually days away from hatching. Sometimes they hatch on the flight and are cruelly crushed by the couriers to avoid the attention that the chirping of fledglings might bring.

If they make it to their destination alive, the birds will most likely make their way to private collections in North America, Europe or Japan, where Australia’s many unique birds are prized as pets. Some will go to wildlife parks or zoos.

If the courier is stopped by customs officers, he will most likely smash all the eggs in the mistaken belief that species cannot be determined from crushed eggs. But DNA testing will reveal whether the species are endangered and the courier will face fines of up to $110,000 or 10 years’ jail.

In reality, most wildlife smugglers caught in Australia receive prison sentences under one year or face immediate deportation, with fines that amount only to the value of one more trip to the bush. A $20,000 fine is the price of five shingleback lizards overseas. And if caught, couriers will have little knowledge about the organised crime syndicate they work for, which will simply regroup and send another mule to collect its order in this flourishing trade.

Interpol estimates global wildlife smuggling is worth more than $10 billion annually. Only the illegal trades in drugs and weapons are worth more. In Australia, as with many other countries, penalties for wildlife smuggling are low, making it a less risky proposition than narcotics or guns. There are big bucks to be made, with Australia’s birds and reptiles coveted by overseas collectors who can increasingly arrange to smuggle to order since the advent of the internet.

Everything from the endangered red-tailed black, gang-gang and Major Mitchell cockatoos to the more common galahs, lorikeets and corellas will net prices of up to 60 times their worth here if taken out of the country. Australia’s unique reptiles are also big business and are routinely stolen from the wild and sent overseas either with couriers on passenger flights or through the mail.

It’s a two-way traffic. Exotic reptile and bird species are also smuggled in and illegally traded among some of Australia’s bird and reptile enthusiasts who have taken their hobby to a criminal level.

“At least once a month we get some sort of live wildlife seizure,” the head of the Australian Customs Service investigations, Richard Janeczko, says. There were 545 cases of wildlife smuggling detected at Australia’s airports in 2005-06. That figure does not include reptiles that were detected through the postal system.

Last week, Janeczko attended a World Customs Organisation conference in Thailand, an international hub for the illegal wildlife trade, to gain regional co-operation in fighting this environmentally destructive crime.

“There is no way in the world this is a war that can ever be totally won,” Janeczko says. “Customs is definitely making it a lot more difficult to engage in the business but the war will continue when there are big profits to be made. I think it is true to say that it seems less risky [than drug smuggling] in terms of sentences you might get, especially in Asia. Australian courts are quite variable with the penalties.”

The internet has been blamed for increasing the ease and relative anonymity of organising wildlife deals. Increased security at airports in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks has forced smuggling operations to become more sophisticated. Tighter passenger security checks and more advanced X-ray screening of luggage and mail have led to more detections, but it is unknown exactly how much gets through. A search of the internet reveals how easy it is to buy Australian birds and reptiles overseas.

One of the cruelest forms of smuggling is that of live birds, but smugglers have moved away from it because of the high death rate. Eggs are now preferred because they are smaller and offer a greater chance of survival. At Australia’s airports, eggs and reptiles continue to be found concealed in the bras, pants and even stockings of couriers. Egg smugglers often wear modified vests ensuring their body heat keeps eggs viable during the flight.

Reptiles are much easier to keep alive during export. They can be forced into hibernation and survive for weeks in the mail. Western Australia has more than two-thirds of Australia’s reptile species, making it a prime target of international smugglers who simply take reptiles from the wild and mail them home.

In one notorious case in 2003, the producer of the British wildlife show Survival was caught at Perth airport with suitcases containing 64 shingleback lizards, 14 barking geckos, 13 squelching froglets, three thorny devils, 13 spiny-tailed geckos and nine western bearded dragons with 26 of their eggs.

Even when reptiles are intercepted in the mail, they are often doomed to euthanasia. Unless their exact origin is known, they cannot be returned to the wild because of the risk of spreading diseases between regions. When mailed overseas, lizards often have their legs taped to prevent them scratching or moving.

Michael Sverns has been investigating the illegal trade in birds in Victoria for two decades as a wildlife investigator with the Department of Sustainability and Environment. He concedes it is very difficult to keep track of the “nest robbers” who steal the eggs of native birds from the wild. But there are some major victories. A 10-year combined operation with customs has managed to dismantle a large bird-smuggling syndicate based in Victoria with links to South Africa, the Philippines and Singapore. Cases will go before the courts this year.

Ten years ago, another large syndicate was uncovered that used American students to take birds’ eggs from the wild, for eight years. The students would arrive in Australia, hire a car at the airport and use maps to head straight to Major Mitchell cockatoo nesting sites in country Victoria. Birds Australia, an organisation of ornithologists dedicated to the conservation of birdlife, says any inquiries about specific nesting site locations were treated with suspicion.

Deals are often done by an underground network of enthusiasts through clandestine meetings in suburban car parks, similar to the drug trade. It is not uncommon to find a hydroponic crop of cannabis as well as illegal reptiles during raids on private homes. “All the crime is interwoven, with people growing drugs to pay for their electricity bills, or they breed the snakes to make money out of them because it’s all tax-free dollars,” Larner says.

Despite heightened security at Australia’s airports and an increasing public consciousness of protecting the environment, those in the fight against wildlife smuggling have no doubt it will continue to flourish while penalties remain low and profits high.

But saving the innocent victims of a cruel trade is a strong incentive to outsmart the smugglers, says customs’ Janeczko. “Many of these animals are dying and some of these animals could disappear from the environment. We want our children to be able to see these animals.”

Authorities crack egg smuggling racket

By Mark Russell

The Age, May 3, 2009

The eggs of endangered Australian glossy black cockatoos are among those sought by international collectors.

AN INTERNATIONAL crime syndicate based in northern Victoria is making millions of dollars smuggling endangered and exotic bird eggs in and out of the country.

The Sunday Age believes that an investigation, code-named Operation Janitor, involving federal and state wildlife authorities has disrupted the gang’s operations. Homes have been raided and more than a dozen syndicate members interviewed, with charges expected to be laid within weeks.

Investigators say the couriers, some in wheelchairs in a bid to avoid suspicion, travel mainly to South Africa, the Philippines and Singapore, where they exchange native eggs for exotic eggs prized by Australian collectors.

The eggs of endangered Australian red, yellow and white-tailed black cockatoos, glossy black cockatoos, Major Mitchell cockatoos, gang-gang cockatoos, galahs and lorikeets are the most sought-after by international collectors. A recent wildlife investigation in Britain found the value of a red-tailed black cockatoo was now $100,000 on the black market.

Investigators say many of these native bird eggs are sourced from Victoria, including the Pine Plains area of Wyperfeld National Park, 450 kilometres north-west of Melbourne. The eggs are stolen from nest hollows during the bird breeding season from September to December. The native eggs are exchanged overseas for the eggs of rare and exotic birds such as macaws and moluccas.

These eggs are smuggled back into Australia where the syndicate enlists mainly women with either a nursing or animal husbandry background to hand raise the birds after the eggs have hatched. The birds are then sold on the black market for as much as $100,000.

The syndicate stores the bird eggs in safe houses in northern Victoria and disguises its operations using legitimate bird breeding businesses as a front.

Department of Sustainability and Environment wildlife officer Mike Sverns has compiled briefs of evidence against crime syndicate members, which are now being reviewed by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions office. “This is not a petty offence. We regard this as a serious wildlife crime. A crime against the state,” Mr Sverns said.

The Sunday Age has been told intelligence gathered by the Department of Sustainability and Environment, Customs, and the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and Arts has found the continuing criminal enterprise in northern Victoria is part of an established network of international traffickers in eggs of high-value wildlife.

The activities of the syndicate have serious implications for biodiversity through both the direct impacts on wild populations of taking the eggs, and the threat of the introduction of disease. There is no legitimate market for the eggs of wildlife in Victoria or Australia.

Mr Sverns said wildlife officers had confirmed the trafficking had been operating for at least five years. One courier, French national Pascal Rene Della Zuana, 48, was jailed for two years and fined $10,000 in 2007 after being caught trying to smuggle 23 exotic bird eggs into Australia from Bangkok. He was found to be wearing a modified singlet that held an array of exotic bird eggs. Importing an endangered species into Australia carries a maximum penalty of 10 years’ jail and a $110,000 fine.

Customs national manager for investigations Richard Janeczko said wildlife smugglers preferred bird eggs to live animals because they were easier to smuggle. “Egg smuggling has grown over the years, but it’s been a traditionally smuggled commodity for a long time,” Mr Janeczko said. “When people are smuggling birds they tend to smuggle as many eggs as they can because you don’t have to worry about feeding them and they’re easier to protect.”

The illegal smuggling of wildlife is said to be worth between $US5 billion and $US15 billion ($A6.8-$A20.5 billion) a year.

From:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/authorities-crack-egg-smuggling-racket-20090502-aquw.html

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Wildlife Smuggling

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EGG SMUGGLER

Quantum programme, ABC television – 8th March, 2001- Producer Ian Cuming

Museum Victoria has been assisting Australian Customs with some DNA detective work that will help put an end to the illegal traffic in wildlife.

Smuggling live birds has been one of the most lucrative exports for wildlife traffickers. But recently Australian customs has been confronted with an even more difficult problem. Traffickers have begun smuggling fertilised eggs because they are easier to conceal than live birds.

Eggs can be hidden just about anywhere and they can be carried in much greater numbers. Even when the smugglers are caught, it creates another hurdle for Customs. Before they can prosecute they must first establish what species of bird is being smuggled.

Previously, the only way to successfully prosecute bird egg smugglers had been to hatch the eggs and raise the chicks and so prove that the eggs came from an endangered species. Sometimes it could take up to 6 months to identify the species. Smugglers know this and so when they are caught smuggling eggs they immediately smash the eggs to avoid detection.

Recently however, Museum Victoria has been assisting Customs. Dr Les Christidies and his colleague Dr Janette Norman have been working on DNA testing techniques. They had already been building up a DNA database of Australian birds at the museum so it was a natural step to use it in some DNA detective work. In regard to smashed eggs caught on bird smugglers, DNA testing can be done on a piece of egg membrane which lies just inside the shell. Each bird or species of bird has a unique DNA sequence which can be used for identification. This information is crucial for a successful prosecution.

For example, recently a woman was caught leaving Australia with eggs hidden in her brazier. When she was caught she immediately smashed all of the eggs – making conventional identification impossible. But Dr Christidies and Dr Norman were able to sample membrane tissue from the eggs and use DNA fingerprinting to identify where the eggs were from. In just 2 weeks they were able to prove that the smashed eggs in the bra were from Galahs. Their DNA evidence led to Customs successfully charging the woman with attempting to illegally export wildlife.

CRUEL TRADE – LIVE ANIMAL SMUGGLING

Animals are often stuffed into suitcases, bras, stockings or even strapped

around a courier’s body.

By Sonya Bryskine

Epoch Times – March, 2010

They are smothered under layers of clothing, strapped to the body, sewn into suitcases or stuffed into tubes. These are just some of the cruel methods used to smuggle some of Australia’s exotic

wildlife – part of a business believed to be second only to arms and drug trade.

A customs spokesperson cites some 773 cases of wildlife detections in Australia in the period of 2006-07. This is a significant increase of 42 per cent, compared to the previous year’s 545 cases.

Animal smugglers are particularly attracted to the abundance of rare reptiles and birds in Australia. Shingleback lizards and thorny dragons, as well as the eggs of the endangered red-tailed black cockatoo, are in high demand across Asia, Europe and the US.

The majority of the illegally smuggled wildlife end up as pets or in private collectors’ hands. Only accredited zoos, conservation parks or breeding programmes are allowed to acquire animals through official channels.

A single shingleback lizard, popular for its Godzilla-like appearance, can fetch up to $4000 on the black market, while birds carry a price tag as high as $10,000. Japan, the US and Germany are believed to be most common destinations of this ‘live cargo’.

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Great galah … high death rates make the smuggling of fully grown birds less common.�Photo: Australian Customs Service

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