Sunday, August 29, 2010

From Africa to Asia

One way ticket:

"Malaysia-bound ivory, rhino horns seized at Kenya airport" by Associated Press | August 25, 2010

NAIROBI — Wildlife officers seized two tons of elephant ivory and five rhino horns at Kenya’s main airport that were to be illegally shipped to Malaysia, an official said yesterday.

Paul Udoto, a spokesman with the Kenya Wildlife Service, estimated that it took 20 years to amass the collection, and said it is unlikely the elephants were killed for the tusks but rather that someone collected them from elephants that died naturally.

Udoto said three of the Rhino horns had transmitters in them, meaning they were being tracked by wildlife officials.

Airports in Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Africa have emerged as the three main ones to smuggle African ivory to Asia, where it is a collector’s item.

Early last month authorities in Thailand netted 1,683 pounds that were flown from Kenya. In May, Vietnamese authorities discovered nearly two tons of elephant tusks illegally imported from Kenya hidden in dried seaweed. The shipment was bound for China.

Also see: Around the Horn of Africa: Elephants and Ivory

According to wildlife officials, elephant poaching has risen sevenfold in Kenya since a one-time ivory sale was approved in 2007 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, for four African countries.

Related: Japan Rubs Globalists Raw

Last year 271 Kenyan elephants were killed by poachers, compared with 37 in 2007.

Why is it globalists never make things better?

CITES banned the sale of ivory in 1989.

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Related: Flogging Females in Malaysia

Also see: Myanmar's Good Luck Charm

Return flight:

"Baby tiger found stuffed in suitcase" by Associated Press | August 28, 2010

A tiger cub that was rescued from a suitcase at Bangkok’s international airport was fed by a veterinarian yesterday.
A tiger cub that was rescued from a suitcase at Bangkok’s international airport was fed by a veterinarian yesterday. (Sakchai Lalit/Associated Press)

BANGKOK — Authorities at Bangkok’s international airport found a tiger cub that had been drugged and hidden alongside a stuffed toy tiger in the suitcase of a woman flying from Thailand to Iran, an official and a wildlife protection group said yesterday.

The woman, a Thai national, had checked in for her flight and her overweight bag was sent for an X-ray, which showed what appeared to be a live animal inside, according to TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring group.

The woman was arrested at Suvarnabhumi Airport before boarding her flight Sunday. The cub, estimated to be about 3 months old, was sent to a wildlife conservation center in Bangkok....

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