Hanoi - Police in the central Vietnam province of Quang Tri arrested a truck driver transporting wild pangolins and grass snakes for sale to a restaurant, police and forest warden officials said Friday. Environment and traffic police Wednesday stopped a truck travelling on Highway 9 in Quang Tri Province. They found the animals packaged in boxes and sackcloth. The total weight was about 50 kilogrammes.
"This is the fourth wildlife-related arrest in our province," said Senior Lieutenant-Colonel Ho Si Cuong, head of the Environmental Police Department of Quang Tri Province.
Driver Le Cong Thanh was immediately taken into custody for questioning.
At the police station, Thanh declared the animals belonged to someone else who had gone into hiding upon learning he had been arrested.
Trung said that if Thanh cannot provide information on the owner within one month he will be considered the owner.
Neither pangolins nor grass snakes are listed in the Red Book, a compilation of Vietnam's most endangered species. The amount Thanh was transporting was too low to merit prosecution. As such, police can only apply administrative measures such as imposing fines or impounding the truck used.
"We cannot jail Thanh in this case," said Cuong.
"We released the animals into the forest Thursday," said Khong Trung, the head of the Forest Warden Department of Quang Tri Province.
According to Vietnamese law, all wild animals found trafficked are released back into the forest.
Cuong said that in early December 2008, his department also arrested Nguyen Van Long, who was caught transporting a cargo of wildlife weighing 193 kilogrammes. Animals seized included snakes, turtles and civet cats.
"In 2008 we recorded 651 cases of wildlife trafficking in our database, up from 603 in 2007," said Nguyen Tran Thu Hang, of Education for Nature Vietnam (ENV). A local NGO, ENV runs a hotline related to wildlife crime. The database is drawn from the hotline, media reports and government reports.
For many, eating a rare animal is a status symbol in the developing economy.
"Vietnam's economy has developed and people are richer. Wildlife is not very easy to get hold of and it's not cheap. Most consumers are well off," said Hang.
Vietnam is also a corridor for traffickers, with many shipments of wild animals from Cambodia, Laos or Indonesia travelling through Vietnam en route to China.
"The Vietnamese love eating wild animals. They think the meat is better and more delicious than farmed animals. It contains no poisonous chemicals," said Trinh Thu Trang, 26, an embassy assistant living in Hanoi who preferred her place of work remain anonymous.
