Recently, while on patrol in the Aranyaprathet District region of Thailand, rangers in Thailand’s 12th Ranger Forces Regiment noticed two men unloading blue mesh bags from a pickup truck parked on a rural road close to the Cambodian border. When they attempted to investigate further, the men fled in the truck, prompting a car chase that eventually ended in their arrest, CBS reports. Inside the truck, the rangers found something those of us who live in the U.S. probably don’t see every day — 81 long-tailed macaques, as well as a bunch of meth.
While it appears the meth was stored separately from the monkeys and was likely intended for human use, not the macaques’ consumption, the rangers still arrested the two men. The suspects are now facing charges for illegally possessing and trading protected wildlife, as well as possessing and consuming illegal drugs. The good news is, while the people who stuff monkeys into little bags and smuggle them into other countries illegally aren’t exactly known for taking great care of the animals they capture, the report makes no mention of any dead macaques, so it sounds like they were all found alive, and they’re now reportedly being cared for by a nearby wildlife rescue center.
Those weren’t the only monkeys 12th Ranger Forces Regiment rescued that day, either. Earlier that same day, while on patrol in the Khlong Hat District, they responded to “unusual animal noises” coming out of a sugarcane field, and upon investigating, found 10 plastic baskets. Inside the baskets, they discovered 62 macaques stuffed into mesh bags. While they were reportedly not doing great health-wise, they were also transferred to the same wildlife rescue center, bringing the total number of rescued monkeys to 143 — 74 males and 69 females.
Wildlife smuggling
CNN reports that, according to the local police who interviewed the suspects, the two men claimed they had been hired to smuggle the monkeys into Cambodia. In a statement, Somruek Suppamitkrisana, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Division, said, “The discovery of consecutive cases like this confirms that the border area remains a target for wildlife trafficking networks, especially for long-tailed macaques, which are in high demand internationally.” It’s also an issue Thailand has been dealing with for years. As CBS explains:
Thailand is a major transit hub for wildlife smugglers, who often sell highly prized endangered creatures on the lucrative black market in China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia.
…Last year, Thailand sent almost 1,000 highly endangered lemurs and tortoises back to their home in Madagascar, after both countries’ biggest operation against wildlife trafficking.
In June, Indian customs officers seized nearly 100 creatures including lizards, sunbirds and tree-climbing possums, from a passenger arriving from Thailand. Wildlife trade monitor TRAFFIC, which battles the smuggling of wild animals, said at the time that more than 7,000 animals, dead and alive, had been seized along the Thailand-India air route in the last 3-and-a-half years.
According to CNN, another seizure at a Thai airport last year involved a red panda and a cotton-top tamarin monkey, along with 85 other animals. And while I don’t want to distract from the seriousness of animal abuse or smuggling, since this post has been a bit of a downer, I do feel obligated to point out that the CNN article has some very cute photos of some of the rescued animals. There we go. That’s a way to go out on a less depressing note. Click the link to see the cute rescued animals.
