Vietnamese poacher nabbed for hunting, trafficking endangered primates

By Staff reporters   July 31, 2017 | 07:46 pm PT
The man was busted smuggling rare black-shanked douc langurs he had killed in Cambodia.

Authorities in the southern province of Binh Phuoc have detained a Vietnamese man for illegal wildlife hunting and trafficking, according to VietnamPlus.

Ton Tan Tai was busted when Bu Dop District's forest rangers and officers from Dac Huyt Border Guard Station caught him illegally transporting wild animals during a night patrol.

Authorities seized five dead primates during the arrest. The Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources has identified the animals as black-shanked douc langurs, an endangered species protected by Vietnamese and international laws.

At the station, Tai claimed to have crossed into Cambodia on July 23 to hunt wild animals. He managed to shoot five primates and was smuggling them back to Vietnam for sale.

Authorities are still investigating the case.

Black-shanked, red-shanked and grey-shanked douc langurs are native to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Their populations had dropped by 50 to 80 percent over the last three decades, the WWF said on its website.

In Vietnam, the main threats to the douc langurs are habitat loss and hunting, and the animals are used for medicine, meat or sold as pets.

 
 
go to top