Jakarta Globe, Yuli Krisna & Dyah Ayu Pitaloka, Mar 13, 2014
Bandung/Malang,
East Java. Conservationist group ProFauna Indonesia on Thursday reported an
alleged hunter of protected wildlife to the police after he uploaded several
photos on Facebook showing him and a group of people posing with several dead
animals.
The report
was made against Ozzy Syahputra Muhammad Akbar, who last year posted several
photos onto social media displaying slain Javan monkeys and leopard cats.
The
Facebook account in question was either deleted or deactivated on Wednesday
after a deluge of condemnation came its way, ProFauna chairman Rosek Nursahid
said on Thursday.
“The photos
had been posted for a while [since January 2013], but [they] drew even more
attention this year,” Rosek said at ProFauna’s headquarters in the East Java
city of Malang. “There were a lot of photos of [Ozzy] posing with animals he
had hunted.”
ProFauna,
however, saved copies of the photos before the account was removed. The group
submitted them as evidence to the West Java Police along with their report
against Ozzy, who is a resident of Bogor, West Java.
One of the
photos saved by ProFauna showed a dead Javan monkey (or lutung), a “vulnerable”
species according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
There was blood on the monkey’s forehead, and its hand was made to hold a
bottle of mineral water.
There were
two comments posted under the photo: one said “heavily drunk,” while the other
said, “How could it get drunk with mineral water? hahahaaaa.”
Another
photo displayed eight men — five of them holding airsoft rifles — posing with
four dead monkeys in front of them.
Rosek added
that Ozzy was a member of an airsoft gun community. The group’s Facebook
account was also recently shut down.
ProFauna
accused Ozzy of violating the 1990 Conservation Law by killing protected
animals.
“ProFauna
Indonesia hopes that the West Java Police will take action against hunters who
kill protected wildlife,” Radius Nursidi, the coordinator of the West Java
chapter of ProFauna, said after filing the report to police in Bandung.
Rosek added
that ProFauna would monitor the police’s handling of the case closely.
The West
Java Police have yet to comment on the case.
Attempts to
reach Ozzy by the Jakarta Globe were unsuccessful.
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