ILLEGAL AND LEGAL ANIMAL TRADE IN INDONESIA

ILLEGAL ANIMAL TRADE IN INDONESIA

According to the United Nations Development Programme: The value of the illegal trade in Indonesia alone is estimated at up to US$ 1 billion per year, in addition to enormous economic, environmental, and social losses. This trade has already caused the decline and local extinction of many species across Southeast Asia.

Indonesia is a major source and a hub for the trade in endangered species. Rare animals from Indonesia are both sold in Indonesia and smuggled out of the country, primarily to Bangkok where they can reach a bigger market and fetch higher prices. It is also a transhipment center for animals smuggled out of Australia bound for Southeast Asia. The Wildlife Conservation Society says: Wildlife trade takes two main forms — legal (but unsustainable) and illegal — both of which are pervasive across Indonesia’s rich forest landscapes and seascapes. Much of this trade is conducted by criminal networks that tend to evade detection by operating across Indonesia’s multiple ports and porous borders. However, our experience is that, through constructive engagement, government law enforcement agencies are responsive and effective if provided with the right training and technical assistance through mutually reinforcing partnerships.

No one knows for sure how extensive the trade is but it is worth millions. By some estimates the illegal animal market in Indonesia is the largest in the world. Jewelry made from giant turtle shells and elephant tusks are sold in souvenir shops. Penises and bones from endangered tigers and horns rhinos make their way to the Chinese medicine market. John M. Glionna wrote in the Los Angeles Times: Indonesia has 230 animals on its endangered species list, and virtually every one of them can be bought here in the capital. “Although laws prohibit such poaching and sales, enforcement is weak and in many places nonexistent. The hunted animals include Sumatran tigers, orangutans, cockatoos, monkeys, bats, parrots, turtles, even baby elephants, activists say. Poachers often employ crude trapping techniques that leave animals with wounds and infections that go untreated. Cramped in crates, many animals die on the long, secretive journey to market. Some are given tranquilizers or drugs before being smuggled out of the country, where they fetch 10 times their local value.“"The problem is real and bigger than anyone realized," said Aschta Boestani, an Indonesia expert for the Wildlife Enforcement Network of the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations.[Source: John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times, November 2, 2009]

Markets Selling Illegally-Traded Animals in Indonesia

Pramuka market in Jakarta is one of Asia’s largest black market for rare animals. Established in1967 as a bird market, it covers an area the size of a football field and offers all kinds of animals. Vendors, ignoring faded signs that threatens buyers and sellers for endangered animals with five years in prison, offer potential customs orangutans and siamang gibbons and tell them they can get them anything they want. Monkeys, parrots, dogs and other animals are sold as food, pets and medicines. One wildlife official saw a crate at a Jakarta bird market, designed for half-dozen birds, stuffed with 150 birds. the bottom of the crate he said was "literally solid with the carcasses of dead birds.”

Takashi Ozaki wrote in the Yomiuri Shimbun, “On the fringes of Jakarta's famed bird market, where a cluster of stalls sell all manner of small birds, black marketeers can be found offering wild animals for sale. I was approached by one black market trader who led me into a room in a house nearby. There I saw two siamang gibbons cowering in a cage. Siamangs are endangered and prohibited from being commercially traded by the Washington Convention. The man told me they were available for 7.5 million rupiah (about each. "Japanese tourists like tiny monkeys that can be carried in your pocket," he said, grinning. "How about a baby slow loris? You can sell this monkey for a high price in Japan, can't you?" [Source: Takashi Ozaki, Yomiuri Shimbun, January 16, 2010]

John M. Glionna wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “On a recent day at Jakarta's Pramuka market, thousands of bamboo cages dangled overhead — many filled with birds supposedly protected by the government — as customers and traders crowded into a maze of darkened stalls. One vendor sought $750 for a Balinese monkey that sat in a cramped cage, barely able to move. Nearby, two vendors demonstrated how a small wooden device inserted into the anus of a pigeon produced a whistling noise when the bird flew. Woodpeckers hammered at logs and large bats hung upside down in cages. "Batman," the merchant said, smiling, patting the cage.Nearby at the sprawling Jatinegara market, a baby brown eagle indigenous to Indonesia was tied to a stick, eyeing passersby with a look that seemed a mixture of fear and fury. [Source: John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times, November 2, 2009]

“In addition to the many creatures displayed and sold legally at markets in Jakarta and elsewhere, many vendors keep a secret list of species for customers willing to pay $1,500 for the pelt of a Sumatran tiger or $150 for a Javan gibbon. "You'd be surprised what's on those lists," Boestani said. "Sun bears packed off to Japan. Tigers sent to China for medicine. Pangolins shipped to Vietnam — some of the most beautiful imperiled creatures on the planet." At some markets here, a deposit of just $50 can get a customer a tiger, endangered monkey or orangutan delivered in a week.

Animals Sold in Illegal Animal Market in Indonesia

The problem of illegal animal sales is particularly acute for large mammals, monkeys and apes. Indonesia has more endangered species of primate that other country and its tigers and rhinoceros are among the rarest in the world.

Komodo dragons sell for up to $50,000 on the black market. The babies of the siamang, the largest of all gibbons, are popular items. Cuscus, a small marsupial, are siod to passing drivers for as little as $25 a piece. Black-capped lorises, beautiful red and green birds, are smuggled out of West Papua with the help of the Navy.

Black palm cockatoo sell for between $12,000 and $20,000 on the black market and their eggs sell for up $10,000 a piece (more per weight than cocaine or heroin). They are among the world's most intelligent parrots. They are found on the Cape York peninsula of Australia and in Indonesia.

Orangutans sell for up to $55,000 on the black market. They are often picked up by sailors in Indonesian ports and sold through dealers in Bangkok and Taiwan. Wildlife officials in the U.S. confiscated an orangutan skull, carved with decorative swirls and lightning bolts.

Reptile Trade in Indonesia

Rachel Nuwer wrote in the New York Times: ““Dozens of countries export reptiles and other exotic animals labeled captive-bred, but Indonesia stands out. At least 80 percent of the 5,000-plus green pythons, for instance, annually exported from the country as captive-bred were caught illegally in the wild, depleting some island populations, according to a study published in the journal Biological Conservation. As far back as 2006, Mark Auliya, a conservation biologist at the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig in Bonn, Germany, surveyed 11 registered reptile breeding facilities in Indonesia and found that just one could plausibly be used for anything other than “laundering” animals that were caught in the wild. “At most of these facilities, there was just no evidence of captive breeding actually happening,” he said. “And at the one where breeding efforts did take place, that only applied to one to three species kept at their facility. If you have international demand for a species that only has a very small distribution, you have a big problem,” Dr. Auliya said.[Source: Rachel Nuwer, New York Times, April 9, 2018]

Five cases listed by Cites involve Indonesia, more than any other country. Officials here are now required to prove that certain animals to be sold abroad, including Oriental rat snakes and Timor monitors, are genuinely captive-bred. If they fail to do so, Cites may bar international trade in those species. In 2016 alone, Indonesian authorities authorized the export of more than four million captive-bred animals. (About two-thirds were geckos.) Officials declined to say how many actually were sent abroad. Many were almost certainly taken from the wild, according to Dr. Nijman and other experts.

“Plucking animals from the wild is cheaper and easier than setting up a breeding operation. This is especially true for low-profit animals like Tokay geckos, which are traded at such high volumes that it would not make economic sense to invest in breeding them. Generally, villagers capture animals in forests and fields, and sell them to middlemen who hand them off to legal reptile farms. The owners of the farms acquire government paperwork certifying that the animals were captive-bred. In this country and many others, the most skilled traffickers in illegal wildlife, then, never need to smuggle anything. They simply apply for a permit and then ship the animals abroad legally. Many of the legal breeding facilities are in and around Jakarta. But when I visited two registered reptile farms recently, I found innocuous suburban homes.

“At one, wire cages were piled in the garage. The trader’s daughter answered the door and told me her father had just stepped out. But after calling him and explaining that a reporter had come to see him, she returned to say that he would be gone indefinitely, likely for days. At the second facility, which neighbors confirmed was home to “the turtle guy,” three nervous attendants admitted me. Rows of neat white tanks, each holding a small green tree python, lined several walls. A couple of turtles crawled around a dismal enclosure, some monitor lizards stared at me from concrete cages, and a fat green frog huddled at the bottom of an outdoor sink.

Butterfly Trade in Indonesia

Ground zero for the international butterfly trade is Indonesia. The rules and practices for capture and trade of these fragile insect are complex and the rewards for those involved can range from a few cents to thousands of dollars. A catcher on Bacan island, Indonesia sells the butterflies he catches in Bali. From there the insects are exported throughout Asia and on to collectors worldwide. On Sulawesi island, one of Indonesia’s major island, butterflies are an important source of income. Families often tend their crops during one season and catch butterflies in another. Women there carefully package the butterflies they catch in handmade envelopes. Dealers often pay children to find and trap butterflies. The children work from morning until midafternoon, when the insects are most active. They sell their catch for a pittance. [Source: Matthew Teague, National Geographic, August 2018]

Matthew Teague wrote in National Geographic: Jasmin sells them either at the market in Bantimurung or to a man in Jakarta — an Indonesian butterfly boss — who then sells them to dealers around the world. By the time a blumei’s final seller mounts the butterfly in a display case, it might go for close to a hundred dollars. Other species — internationally protected species — sell for astronomical prices. The idea of trading in butterflies sounds quaint, almost Victorian, but the internet has enabled the modern market. In 2017 British authorities, for the first time, convicted a man for capturing and killing a large blue, one of the United Kingdom’s rarest butterflies. Investigators linked Phillip Cullen to an online auction account.

“Jasmin’s father caught butterflies before him, starting in the early 1970s. They lived in a village called Bantimurung, which Alfred Russel Wallace, the great British naturalist, had visited a century earlier. He described Bantimurung as “a beautiful sight, being dotted with groups of gay butterflies — orange, yellow, white, blue, and green — which on being disturbed rose into the air by hundreds, forming clouds of variegated colors.”

“The father’s technique was rudimentary. He caught whatever creatures floated near the family home and offered them to foreigners who visited the island. Soon the foreigners who came seemed to know more about the butterflies than local people did. For example, when Jasmin was young, a French collector showed him a glass bell in which he trapped butterflies with a bit of ether. “A killing jar,” Jasmin says. A government project forced his family to move soon after that, he says, but that peculiar jar stayed in his imagination: the motion of the butterflies, and how easily they slipped into stillness.

“Indonesia’s rules governing the capture, sale, and export of butterflies are complicated and riddled with exceptions, which allow even endangered species bred for the commercial market to be bought and sold in certain instances. But how does one tell a wild butterfly from one raised on a breeding farm?

At a place with a bunch of vendors selling butterflies “When the men in button-up shirts are serious, they duck behind the stalls into back rooms to negotiate private deals. Jasmin is serious. In a room behind a storefront, another man shows him several boxes full of the wax paper triangles. These butterflies started their journey in the nets of boys on far-flung islands, then were transported in vans driven by middlemen, and finally they have been funneled here — heaps and mounds of them, waiting for an overseas buyer.

World’s Largest Bee Thought to Be Extinct Sold Online

Wallace’s giant bee (Megachile pluto) was first discovered in 1859 by the eminent scientist Alfred Russel Wallace. Then it disappeared for more than a century, until it was found again in in 1981 by entomologist Adam Messer, who it on three islands in the North Moluccas in Indonesia. He collected a specimen and wrote about his discovery in 1984. In 2019, it was photographed and filmed alive in the wild for the first time by a team including nature photographer Clay Bolt. Around the same time two specimens of the insect were sold on eBay for thousands of dollars. [Source: Douglas Main, National Geographic, February 22, 2019]

Douglas Main wrote in National Geographic: Nicolas Vereecken, an entomologist and ecologist at the University of Brussels, discovered that a collector was selling a specimen of Megachile pluto online, on eBay — it eventually sold for $9,100. Later in 2018, the same collector sold another for a couple thousand dollars. The bee, it seemed, was very much still around. Vereecken is alarmed that this insect has been sold online — and it’s possible that more commerce is taking place through less visible channels. He described these sales in a study published in December in the Journal of Insect Conservation. [Source: Douglas Main, National Geographic, February 22, 2019]

It’s currently legal for this species to be sold across borders, as the animal is not protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which governs international trade in threatened species. Wallace’s giant bee is currently only considered “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which sets the conservation statuses of animals around the world.

Vereecken and others think it should be classified as endangered, at the very least, considering how rare it is and that its range is almost certainly smaller than originally thought. Vereecken is pushing to change its status, though doing so will require more study. Wallace's giant bee is also threatened by deforestation and habitat loss. The report of the discovery comes shortly after the publication of a worldwide study showing that insect species are in decline around the world.

In 1991 a French researcher named Roch Desmier de Chenon discovered the bee. He said: “I was very happy to find it because I knew it was a big discovery," but he didn't publish his work, in part because he feared that collectors would use the information for nefarious purposes. He now regrets not publishing his finding.Indeed, on the one hand, publicizing the discovery of the insect could seem like a risk, considering that it has been sold online, says Robin Moore, with Global Wildlife Conservation, which helped organize the trip. But in reality, unscrupulous collectors already know that it exists. Thus, promoting its discovery and specialness could help the local government and various stakeholders get behind its protection. “If we don’t do anything, it [may] just be collected and slip into obscurity,” Bolt says.

Bird Smuggling in Indonesia

In 2020, RFI reported: Dozens of parrots stuffed into plastic water bottles have been discovered on a ship docked in Indonesia's Papua region, authorities said. Police in the town of Fakfak said the vessel's crew reported hearing noises coming from a large box where 64 live black-capped lories and another 10 dead birds were found. “Black-capped lories are a type of parrot native to New Guinea and nearby smaller islands. “The ship's crew told us that they suspected there were animals inside the box as they heard strange noises," said local police spokesman Dodik Junaidi. No arrests had been made so far and the birds' intended destination was unclear, he added. [Source: RFI, November 20, 2020]

“The vast jungles of Indonesia are home to more than 130 threatened bird species, according to wildlife trade watchdog TRAFFIC, more than any other country except Brazil. But there is also large-scale illegal trading of birds, which sees them sold in giant avian markets in Indonesia's major cities, or smuggled abroad.

“Exotic birds are usually poached and trafficked by smuggling gangs for sale as pets and status symbols. Certain species of bird, such as the Australian palm cockatoo, can sell for as much as $30,000 on the black market. In 2017, Indonesian authorities found some 125 exotic birds stuffed inside drain pipes during a wildlife smuggling raid.

Song Bird Poacher in Sumatra

Reporting from Curup, Indonesia, Richard C. Paddock wrote in the New York Times: “Hiding in the dense Sumatran jungle, the poacher chose a thin branch, coated it with homemade glue and played a snippet of birdsong on an old cellphone. Within moments, three tiny birds alighted on the branch and were trapped. Known as ashy tailorbirds, they were destined for the Indonesian island of Java, where they were likely to spend their lives in a collector’s cage.[Source: Richard C. Paddock, New York Times, April 18, 2020]

“Millions of similar birds are stolen from the wild every year, and prized specimens can ultimately sell for thousands of dollars. These birds are not treasured for their plumage or meat, but for their songs. An illicit trade that begins in the primeval forests takes many of the birds to Indonesia’s teeming capital, Jakarta, where they are entered into high-stakes singing competitions at which government officials frequently preside.

“The poacher, named Afrizal, gently pulled the birds from the branch, peeled the glue from their feet and placed them in a metal cage, which he covered with a faded “Angry Birds” T-shirt. This is how Mr. Afrizal, doing his part to rob Indonesia of its wildlife, has caught more than 200,000 songbirds over the past 15 years. “I do this work to survive,” he said, setting a new trap. “Of course, I feel guilty. If they die, I feel even sadder.”

“Officials and conservationists say wild songbirds are disappearing at a tremendous rate across Indonesia’s vast archipelago. Much of the demand is fueled by the growing craze for bird singing contests.

Fondness for Frog Legs Driving Some Indonesia Species “to Extinction’

In June 2022, the consumption of frog legs, a delicacy in France and Belgium, is “driving species to extinction,” the German conservationist group Wildlife and French NGO Robin des Bois said. “In Indonesia large frog species are dwindling in the wild, one after the other, causing a fatal domino effect for species conservation,” Pro Wildlife co-founder Dr. Sandra Altherr said. “If the plundering for the European market continues, it’s highly likely that we will see more serious declines of wild frog populations and, potentially, extinctions in the next decade.” [Source:Bryan Ke, NextShark, July 5, 2022]

Charlotte Nithart, the president of Robin des Bois, said that not only does the frog legs trade directly affect the species' population, but it also affects overall biodiversity and ecosystem health. Nithart explained, “Frogs play a central role in the ecosystem as insect killers — and where frogs disappear, the use of toxic pesticides is increasing.”

According to the report, Europe imports as many as 200 million frog legs yearly, with Belgium accounting for 70 percent of imports. Although Belgium has the highest number of wild frog legs imported in a year, most of them were then taken to France, which brings in 16.7 percent, while the Netherlands takes in 6.4 percent. France consumes as much as 4,000 tons — equivalent to 40 blue whales — of frog legs in a year. The European country also produces about 10 tons of frog meat yearly, taken from the data gathered from the five farms in France.

In the 1980s, India and Bangladesh were the first to supply frogs' legs to Europe, but since the 1990s, Indonesia has taken over as the largest supplier," Altherr said. Indonesia is reportedly responsible for 74 percent of frog legs exported to European countries, followed by Vietnam with 21 percent, Turkey with four percent and Albania at 0.7 percent, the Pro Wildlife report noted. Of the around 7,400 known frog species, only a few are being traded on the international market, including the Indonesian Javan giant frogs. Jennifer Luedtke, who manages the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list assessment, suggested around 1,200 amphibian species are currently being sold.

Besides European countries, frogs’ legs are also a delicacy in China and in the southern United States. Besides the declining population, Pro Wildlife and Robin des Bois also want to raise awareness of how traders prepare frogs’ legs when exporting to European countries. “Most frogs have their legs cut off with axes or scissors in unison — without anesthesia. The upper half is disposed of while it is dying, the legs are skinned and frozen for export," Altherr said in the report, calling for an end to the cruel practice.

Combating Poaching and the Illegal Wildlife Trade in Indonesia

In December 2019, Indonesian police said that they have arrested two men suspected of being part of a ring that poaches and trades in endangered animals and seized from them several lion and leopard cubs and dozens of turtles. Associated Press reported: “One of the suspects, identified only as Yatno, was arrested in Pekanbaru, the capital of Riau province, after picking up suspicious boxes from a speedboat at a port in Dumai district, said Andri Sudarmadi, Riau police's chief detective. “Police found several boxes containing four lion cubs, a leopard cub and 58 turtles in his van. The turtles and the leopard cub are listed as critically endangered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, while the lion cubs are listed as endangered. [Source: Associated Press, December 15, 2019]

“Yatno's arrest led police to capture another suspect who was planning to sell the smuggled wildlife to a trader on Java island, Sudarmadi said at a news conference. The second suspect was identified only by his initials, IS. Sudarmadi said that the two men were allegedly part of an international trafficking syndicate and that they bought the haul from a smuggler in Malaysia. They told police each cub is valued at $32,000 on the black market, while the turtles fetch $1,200 apiece, Sudarmadi said. “The two suspects, if found guilty, face up to five years in jail and $7,000 in fines for attempting to smuggle wildlife.

In April 2016, the Indonesia's navy and police destroyed what they said were 23 foreign fishing boats caught poaching in Indonesian waters in the previous two months that was widely viewed as a warning for its neighbors in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific to go fish somewhere else. NPR reported: “Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti gave the order in a live-streamed message from her office and the vessels were sunk in seven locations around the country at about the same time. [Source: Phil Ewing, NPR, April 5, 2016]

“Thirteen Vietnamese and 10 Malaysian fishing boats were blown up, Indonesian officials said. They're only the latest in what Indonesian officials called "dozens" of vessels destroyed by a navy and police task force charged with protecting Indonesia's home fisheries. Indonesia's parliament passed a law in 2014 that authorized the seizure and destruction of foreign boats found to be trespassing in local waters. But that hasn't stopped would-be poachers. At least two of the boats sunk had been caught flying Indonesian flags to try to fool authorities.

Malaysia and Indonesia now have stiff penalties for illegally selling , keeping or smuggling orangutans and others wild animals but often it seems that animal trafficking laws don’t have much of an affect on the trade. On the national agenda, animal trafficking is a low priority. Much of the work to combat the trade is done by foreigners. Members of the police and the military, especially in West Papua (Irian Jaya), are widely involved in the rare animal trade and profit greatly from it, and sometimes even own endangered animal themselves as pets. Birds and animals are smuggled in Navy ships. Soldiers routinely take animals with them when the finish their tours of duty.

Wildlife Detectives of Indonesia

The Wildlife Conservation Society began investigating crimes involving wildlife in 2003 and by 2017 had seven teams of detectives around Indonesia who investigated wildlife killings — often undercover. Jon Emont wrote in the New York Times: It is difficult to prosecute elephant poisonings and other wildlife crimes, which in Sumatra include tiger, orangutan and rhinoceros poaching. And that has spurred Indonesian conservation groups to go beyond their traditional advocacy work to conduct independent criminal investigations. “The government’s resources to investigate are limited,” explained Dwi Adhiasto, who leads the group’s investigators in Indonesia. “To really conduct an investigation, you need a long time. Not a week, or a month, but sometimes a year.” [Source: Jon Emont, New York Times, January 11, 2018]

“For example, in the summer, Mawardi, a fisherman in Mekar Jaya, a nearby village, spotted two dead elephants on his way to the river. Elephants do not naturally die in pairs, so conservation groups immediately suspected that the deaths were the latest in a string of poisonings. But when government investigators descended on Mawardi’s village, they made little headway in identifying the killers — or even locating the victims. “It was totally unclear,” said Sumarsono, 45, a forest ranger who investigated the case and who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name. “No one could find the elephants.” He said the case had since been closed.

“Further complicating matters in these cases, villagers are often reluctant to give information to the police that could get community members in trouble, said Supintri Yohar, a field coordinator for Auriga, a local conservation organization. The wildlife society’s detectives typically approach poaching suspects, often posing as buyers, to track wildlife parts to market, and then deliver evidence to the police to encourage them to prosecute. “Our investigators can’t be differentiated from ordinary people,” said Mr. Dwi, the leader of the group’s investigators. “When the police conduct an operation, it’s usually clear who they are.” Mr. Dwi said his team had seen results: Of 101 sting operations conducted by Indonesia’s government in 2016 to detain wildlife traders, 49 were aided by the society’s detectives, the group’s figures show.

“Other conservation groups are also taking on investigative efforts. In April 2017, the police in Lahat, a town in southern Sumatra, raided the home of Ahmad Fajrullah, a young man suspected of wildlife trafficking. They confiscated his goods and charged him with possessing seven antelope bodies, one flat-headed cat tail, eight deer skins, one Asian wildcat skin, one sun bear fang, seven Sumatran tiger bones and a hornbill beak. Much of the investigative work that led to Mr. Fajrullah’s arrest had been conducted by Animals Indonesia, a conservation organization. “The perpetrator had previously sold elephant tusks in a market in Lampung,” in southern Sumatra, said Suwarno, the director of Animals Indonesia. “So we followed him and met up with him a few times, pretending to be a major buyer.” Once the investigators verified the illegal products in his possession, they notified the police, who swiftly arrested him. “In an ideal world, it obviously would be law enforcement conducting these investigations,” said Shayne McGrath, an independent environmental development consultant based in Sumatra. “The reality, though, is that now that NGOs are engaging in it, it does seem to improve results.”

ProFauna is another nonprofit group in Indonesia that is working to protect indigenous wildlife in Indonesia. It has staged sting operations against well-organized poaching rings that extend across Indonesia and sends undercover operatives into Jakarta's animal markets. Irma Hermawati is one such operative. John M. Glionna wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “The job is dangerous. She has received death threats. Ominous visitors have shown up at her office outside Jakarta. What keeps her going, she said, are the successful stings that land poachers in jail — at least for a while. [Source: John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times, November 2, 2009]

At one house in Jakarta, investigators recovered 65 types of dead animals, including the skins of two Sumatran tigers and an Indonesian honey bear, along with a stuffed peacock, all of which were being readied for market. But her strangest case came a few years ago when months of surveillance led to the arrest of a Jakarta man who had illegally kept an orangutan as a pet in his home. The animal was sickly and overweight and had even taken up smoking cigarettes, Hermawati said. She has caught one smuggler carrying a baby orangutan in a computer bag. Another had stuffed a rare parakeet inside a water pipe, and still another carried a small monkey in a lunch box. But many cases end in frustration when suspects are given light sentences and do little or no jail time. "Many people still do not take this issue seriously," she said.

Javan Rhino Poachers Get 11-Year Prison Sentences

In February 2025, an Indonesian court has handed lengthy prison terms to poachers and criminal gang members who killed 26 Javan rhinos over a period of five years in Ujung Kulon National Park in western Java between 2018 and 2023. AFP reported: A court in Indonesia's Banten province sentenced the mastermind of the gang to 12 years in prison and gave five of his co-conspirators 11 years. All were also fined 100 million rupiah ($6,135) each, which would be replaced by three additional months in prison if not paid, said the rulings. "It sets a strong precedent and delivers a clear warning to those who would threaten Indonesia's wildlife," Nina Fascione, Executive Director of the International Rhino Foundation, said in a statement. "Adequate justice in a case like this is critical to ensuring rhinos are safe from future poaching." [Source: AFP, February 14, 2025]

Irfan Suryana, a representative of an environmental collective based in villages around the national park, welcomed the punishments but said more needed to be done to prevent poaching. "For many [of the poachers], such actions are often driven by economic hardship. Our responsibility is not only to prohibit such actions but also to provide education and raise awareness," he said.

Authorities paraded the poachers in 2024, saying most of the rhinos were killed for their horns, which were sold on to dealers in China. Ujung Kulon National Park chief Ardi Andono told AFP Friday the sentences were the highest punishment possible for poaching in Indonesia. "It is expected to have a deterrent effect. We will strive to break the poaching chain," he said, adding guarding of the park's entrances and patrols would be stepped up. Ardi said three of those convicted accepted the decision, while the others were considering appeals. "Javan rhinos are a large species that reproduce slowly, so it will take a long time to recover from this terrible loss," Fascione said.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Animal Diversity Web animaldiversity.org ; National Geographic, Live Science, Natural History magazine, David Attenborough books, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Discover magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Wikipedia, The Guardian, Top Secret Animal Attack Files website and various books and other publications.

Last updated February 2025