Indian customs officers have arrested a airplane passenger after discovering two endangered gibbons stuffed inside a checked bag, the newest animals seized from smugglers at Mumbai’s airport.
One of many tiny animals from Indonesia was useless, whereas the opposite, in a video shared by Indian Customs, was seen cradled within the arms of an officer, softly hooting earlier than protecting its face with its arm.
Customs mentioned the passenger, who had travelled from Malaysia by way of Thailand, was given the uncommon animals by a wildlife trafficking “syndicate” for supply in India. Officers performing on “particular intelligence” arrested the passenger in Mumbai on Thursday.
“A subsequent search of their checked baggage, a trolley bag, led to the invention and seizure of two Silvery Gibbon (Hylobates moloch), one reside and one discovered useless, which have been hid in a basket,” the customs division mentioned.
Mumbai Customs
The division additionally mentioned that nearly 8 kilograms of hydroponic weed was discovered hidden within the passenger’s baggage.
Wildlife commerce monitor TRAFFIC, which battles the smuggling of untamed animals and crops, warned in June of a “very troubling” pattern in trafficking pushed by the unique pet commerce.
Greater than 7,000 animals, useless and alive, have been seized alongside the Thailand-India air route within the final 3.5 years, it mentioned.
Dwelling within the wild for the small Silvery Gibbon is the rainforests of Java in Indonesia.
They’re threatened by the lack of forests, looking and the pet commerce, in line with the Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature.
Estimates for the primates left vary from about 2,500 to 4,000.
The seizure follows a number of latest smuggling busts on the similar airport.
Only a week earlier, customs officers mentioned that they had arrested one other smuggler carrying snakes, tortoises and a raccoon.
In June, Mumbai customs intercepted two passengers arriving from Thailand with dozens of venomous vipers and greater than 100 different creatures, together with lizards, sunbirds and tree-climbing possums, additionally arriving from Thailand.
In February, customs officers at Mumbai airport stopped a smuggler with 5 Siamang Gibbons, an ape native to the forests of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.
Unique primates have additionally been smuggled on the U.S.-Mexico border not too long ago. Jim Stinebaugh, a particular agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, instructed CBS Information that almost 90 child spider monkeys have been confiscated on the Texas-Mexico border within the final 18 months — and that is believed to be only a fraction of the spider monkeys illegally introduced into the USA.
