There
may be as few as 400 Ploughshare Tortoises in the world. Police in
Thailand caught a man trying to sneak out of the country with 54 of them
and other rare tortoises in his luggage:
On Friday,
authorities arrested a 38-year-old Thai man as he was attempting to
collect a bag containing tortoises from Madagascar, from a luggage
carousel, at the airport. The bag was registered to a 25-year-old woman
who had flown from Madagascar to Bangkok via Nairobi the same day.
Royal
Thai Customs officers and their counterparts in the CITES management
authority found 54 Ploughshare Tortoises Astrochelys yniphora and 21
Radiated Tortoises Astrochelys radiata, both of which are assessed as
being Critically Endangered.
Ploughshare and Radiated
Tortoises are endemic to Madagascar, totally protected in the country
and are both listed in CITES Appendix I. The wild population of
Ploughshare Tortoises, considered among the rarest species in the world,
is estimated to be as few as 400 individuals, and is declining fast.
No comments:
Post a Comment