Rescued Animals Need More Space in Asia
Efforts to stop illegal trade of endangered animals are gaining strength insome areas, including Southeast Asia. But now, officials must decide what todo with the thousands of animals rescued every year.
This issue is evident at the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center, not farfrom Phnom Penh in Cambodia.
Gibbons – a kind of ape – call across the 2,400 hectares of protected forest.Their voices sometimes can be heard joining with those of rare birds andother endangered animals.
Many of the animals arrived at the rescue center after being seized byCambodia’s Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team. The team includes Cambodiangovernment officials and military police. Other help comes from the WildlifeAlliance, a non-profit group based in the United States.
Every year the team rescues hundreds of endangered animals. Cambodianshelp to make these rescues possible by calling a special telephone hotline.
A huge amount of money is exchanged in the illegal trade of animals. It is the world’s third largest black market, after sales of arms and drugs. Wellorganized criminal groups and corrupt or uncaring officials remove speciesfrom the wild faster than they can reproduce.
The Phnom Tamao Rescue Center is home to about 100 sun bears. That is the largest population of sun bears in captivity. A number of moon bears alsolive there.
One expert says the whole protected area would support only a single bear in the wild. That is the opinion of Anuradha Jayasinghe, technical adviser with agroup called Free the Bears.Two bears were set free after they regained theirhealth over time in another part of the country. They did well for about threemonths. But then:
“They both got snared again by poachers. So that’s the main issue inCambodia is the hunting. It’s just the forests aren’t safe at the moment forreleasing bears. And in the forests which probably, we might be able to ((release animals)) are full of mines.”
More than 2,000 rare turtles were returned to their native wild home inIndonesia in February. These creatures were taken from wildlife traffickers.They had been seized a month earlier in Hong Kong.
Pangolins are often called scaly anteaters. They are sometimes hunted forfood and medicine. Those abilities have led them to become the most oftenseized mammal in Asia’s wildlife trade. The Worldwatch Institute says that has caused a great loss of their populations in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.
Thailand forms a major point of transport for smugglers. Officials therereported seizing more than 10,000 live animals and 1,300 animal remains lastyear.
I’m Jeri Watson.
* VOA Correspondent Steve Herman wrote this story in Tro Pang Sap,Cambodia. Jeri Watson wrote the story for VOA Learning English. GeorgeGrow edited it.
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Words in this Story
captivity – n. the state of being kept in a place (such as a prison or a cage)and not being able to leave or be free
species – n. a group of animals or plants that are similar and can produceyoung animals or plants
smugglers – n. people who secretly or illegally move someone or somethingfrom one country to another
mammal – n. any of a class of warm-blooded higher vertebrates that feedtheir young with milk from mammary glands. They have skin more or lesscovered with hair. Humans are included.
