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| Indonesian officers display the skins of a Sumatran tiger, left, and Javan leopard in Jakarta on Wednesday. (JG Photo/Safir Makki) |
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Authorities
have uncovered a second illegal wildlife trading operation in the space of less
than a month, seizing endangered animal pelts during a raid on a house in
Cilandak, South Jakarta, on Tuesday night.
Darori, the
Forestry Ministry’s director general of nature conservation and forest
protection, said his office had managed to scupper an attempt to sell the pelt
of a Sumatran tiger and a Javan leopard.
Officers
also arrested four people at the house. One of them, identified only as R.S.,
has been identified as an illegal wildlife trafficker and named a suspect by
the police.
He has been
charged with trading in protected animal parts under the 1990 Natural Resources
Conservation Law, for which he could get up to five years in prison and up to
Rp 100 million ($10,500) in fines.
Tuesday’s
raid comes just four weeks after police seized dozens of stuffed rare animals
and pelts from a suspected taxidermist in Depok.
The stuffed
animals confiscated in the July 17 bust included 14 tigers, two leopards, one
clouded leopard, a lion, three bears and a tapir. There were also two sacks
full of tiger pelts, as well as a stuffed tiger head and four mounted deer heads.
The
Sumatran tiger and Javan leopard are classified as critically endangered
species, one step away from being extinct. Trading in or possession of these
protected animals or their parts is a criminal offense.
The
suspect, Feri, has also been charged under the Natural Resources Conservation
Law and faces up to five years in prison.
His arrest
came a day after Greenpeace Indonesia reported that the Sumatran tiger, one of
the most threatened of the remaining six tiger subspecies in the world, was disappearing
from the wild at a rate of around 51 animals a year.
The World
Wide Fund for Nature recently identified Indonesia as a key country of origin
for tiger parts and elephant ivory in the illegal trade of wild animal parts.
In its
“Wildlife Crime Scorecard” released last month, it rated the government as
“failing on key aspects of compliance or enforcement.”
“Although
Indonesia has increased its efforts to protect wild tiger populations and
detect illegal trade, there remains a significant enforcement gap for tigers at
the retail level, with Sumatra having a significant illegal domestic market for
tiger parts,” the report said.
Additional reporting from Antara
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