Threatened Schuppentiere in Vietnam

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Environment

Threatened Schuppentiere in Vietnam

You are the meistgeschmuggelten mammals of the world, and yet many people have never heard of them. But animal rights activists in Vietnam want to Schuppentiere save.

Lucky crawls slowly out of the hay, unrolled his scaled, sinewy body, and then turns his leathery head a few Times back and forth. After he has decided that perhaps it would be better, but still to stay in bed, he lets himself relax back into the hay settle. For a nocturnal Schuppentier how Lucky is the late afternoon but still a bit early to get up.

The “Carnivore and Pangolin Conservation Program” will Schuppentiere again auswildern

As the Name suggests the Lucky are in fact lucky, because he is currently living in a safe place: the center of a “Carnivore and Pangolin Conservation Program” outside of Vietnam’s oldest national Park, Cuc Phuong.

Most of his peers are not so fortunate. In the last few years are the scaly Ameisenfresser to the
meistgeschmuggelten mammals in the world.

Fuelled by demand for their meat and their scales, the number of Schuppentiere slumped dramatically, and all eight species of the world conservation Union (IUCN), according to now considered to be threatened.

The Chinese and the Malay Schuppentier are even threatened by extinction, this means, the risk that in the immediate future in nature become extinct, is extremely high.

Strong demand from China

Today, in Vietnam, the likelihood is significantly higher, a Schuppentier to see it in a Restaurant on the plates or locked in a car or truck on the way to the Chinese border, as one of the animals in the Wilderness to encounter.

For the growing middle class in both countries is the meat of the animals is a forbidden delicacy and their scales found in traditional Chinese medicine for a variety of use.

Vietnam’s large neighbor to the North is the biggest danger for the animals, both in the Region and beyond.

Douglas Hendrie, a technical Advisor for the nature conservation organisation “Education for Nature Vietnam” (ENV) estimates that about 90 percent of Vietnam smuggled Schuppentiere on the way to China.

Smuggling is not hard enough punished

Schuppentiere in captivity is difficult: you have to feed them is expensive and breeding programmes are only partially successful

The fight against the smuggling of scaly Ameisenfresser is a challenge. In the pursuit of the smugglers, there is some progress on the “middle level”, but Hendrie is concerned that the authorities are the main actors still largely undisturbed.

In addition, the efforts on-site are unsuccessful, if the regional level does not change.

Hendrie describes Laos, with Vietnam on a long boundary is connected, as “more or less a black hole of law enforcement.” And as if that wasn’t bad enough, according to a
new report by the NGO Traffic even Myanmar to a place of the illegal animal trade has become.

“If I were the community of the still living Schuppentiere in Vietnam, if there is such a thing, a Council could give,” jokes Hendrie, “that would be the: you can hide!”

The Schuppentierprogramm

Because Hiding isn’t always an Option, now conservationists, the Schuppentieren to help.

“Save Vietnam’s Wildlife (SVW), the animal rights organization, the center operates, in the Lucky lives, has started a program to Schuppentiere again auszuwildern, often animals that have been confiscated by the authorities. Apart from a similar centre in the neighbouring Cambodia, it is the only one of its kind in the whole of Asia.

In November did SVW in addition, with the “World Wildlife Fund” (WWF) together to make 24 animals, to suspend, with Peilsendern were equipped.

Nguyen Van Thai, head of SVW says they are the first organization in Vietnam, the Schuppentiere on this kind auswildere. “Hopefully, we will thus learn more about the animals, about their habitats and their Survival rate.”

Schuppentiere back into nature is important, because the captivity are not good. Breeding programs were so far only limited success, and in the centre of SVW are already a number of animals died.

Changing perceptions, new laws,

Using senders want to make animal rights more about the habitat and behavior of the Schuppentiere learn

The more the animals in Vietnam reintroduced, the more hope animal rights activists for a change in the public perception. Events and information campaigns will change to promote.

The global day of Schuppentiers, the 20. February, is SVW a new center opening, which is both about the beauty of Vietnam’s predators (the centre is home to endangered Zibetkatzenarten) as well as the Schuppentiere should inform, and about the threat they face, will enlighten.

ENV said that the public perception in Vietnam convert – and thanks to a growing network of local informants and a 24-hour Hotline for Wildtierverbrechen will make it easier smuggling at the local level to fight.

Changes in Vietnamese law to have the animal welfare strengthened. The decree 160, a new law in January 2014 came into force, has Schuppentiere of a “secondary species to a completely protected, endangered species,” says Hendrie of ENV. He says, it is designed to match a significant decline in criminal offences in connection with Schuppentieren during the last two years.

Nguyen Phuong Dung, Vice-head of EPS confirmed that. “Before this law, was a Schuppentier after his seizure directly back to the local authorities,” he says.

But that often led to, that the Schuppentiere resold, and so sooner or later were killed.

Nguyen Phuong Dung said that thanks to the new law they ended up now more likely in centers like the one in Cuc Phuong.

“The law has given us the ammunition given to us by the Strafverfolgungsseite her need to really move something,” agrees Hendrie.