Wildlife law enforcement and double standards

The man had no zoo licence and could not provide any legal documents for the almost 300 wild animals including 13 white lions, five tigers, two baby orang-utans, two red pandas, 30 marmoset monkeys, camels and 30 more protected species. The owner, however, said he needed three days to provide all documents, as they were with his father in Si Sa Ket province. Now, a week after the raid, all the animals are still with the owner, even though no paperwork was presented.

The raids by the DNP on elephant tourist camps around the country made headline news as well. The DNP visited one elephant camp in Phuket and confiscated two baby elephants. Two camps in Sai Yok, Kanchanaburi were raided and 19 elephants were taken. By just raiding a few camps it is clear that claims by some people that a huge number of captive elephants are without proper paperwork and are taken from the wild are true. 

The director-general of the DNP, Damrong Phidet, said it was clear that probably hundreds of elephants were obtained illegally around the country, and vowed to uphold the law, going after the owners of these elephants and in particular the Surin elephant village, the Ayutthaya camps and all elephant camps north of Chiang Mai. He stated that under his leadership the DNP would enforce the law without exception, no matter who they are or who they know. The director-general was quoted as saying that he would raid the Surin elephant village on March 5; he also claimed that when any illegal wildlife or wild-caught elephants were found, he would immediately confiscate the animals as he had done with the rescued animals at the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT).

 So here we are more than a month after the first raids against the Elephant Nature Park Foundation (ENP) and the WFFT – both charities that have been raided respectively four and eight times by the DNP – and 103 animals were forcibly removed from the WFFT even though there was supporting legal paperwork.

 Damrong Phidet’s words were clear: “If any illegal wildlife is found, we will confiscate it!” But Khun Damrong’s actions have been completely different; he now refuses to further raid and inspect elephant camps country-wide even though he knows that they house hundreds of illegally obtained elephants. Adding insult to injury, he even refuses to confiscate almost 300 illegally imported wild animals from an illegal wildlife trader that has openly said he imports and exports wildlife for zoos.

 The CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) office in Bangkok has said it never issued any import licences for baby orang-utans or red pandas, making it clear they must have been imported illegally. For any of the other 200 plus animals, there is no proof of legal ownership as well.

 With less than 12 months to go before the DNP and the government host the next international CITES meeting, with over 190 countries attending, a boiling question will be how suitable Mr Damrong Phidet’s department is to host this international meeting? With hundreds of illegally kept, wild-caught elephants around the country, some poached from the wild within Thailand and some smuggled in from neighbouring countries such as Burma, we have an issue that needs to be acted upon. With illegal wildlife traders in Thailand openly stating that they (illegally) import and export wildlife protected under the CITES convention, and when caught by the authorities even being allowed to keep these wild animals, we have an issue that completely undermines the principals of the international CITES convention.

Edwin Wiek

Phetchaburi