Investigation finds Thai wild tigers targeted by foreign professional gangs

Vietnamese poachers recorded their kills of wild tigers in Thailand

New findings from a three-month investigation have revealed that professional gangs were dispatched across Thailand’s borders to target the Kingdom’s wild tigers.

Freeland, a Bangkok-based international non-governmental organisation working in Asia on environmental conservation and human rights, on Tuesday congratulated Thai authorities for making this discovery and already arresting one of the gangs.

The investigation was initiated after the successful arrest of two Vietnamese men by Thai police in late October following a tip-off from a Thai driver-for-hire. 

The driver had been travelling between the west-central towns of Tak and Phitsanulok when he considered the baggage belonging to two foreign customers to be suspicious, so he called the police. 

. 

 Thai police inspect the remains of a poached tiger

 They arrested the owners of the bag, took the suspects and the tiger remains to Nakhon Sawan police station, and inspected the suspects' belongings, including their phones.

Police then contacted Freeland for analytical assistance. 

The NGO’s forensics experts were dispatched to the scene and provided on-the-job training. 

Using Cellebrite digital forensics technology, police found evidence that the poachers, originating from Vietnam, had crossed Laos into Thailand for targeted hunting in the Kingdom's forests. 

The poachers documented their trips on their phones, including tiger kills.

Freeland believes the poachers were working on assignment from a Vietnamese criminal syndicate. 

.

.

“We do not think this was the poachers’ first time in 

Thailand, and we have reason to believe they were planning to strike again,” said Sangchai, director of Freeland-Thailand.

Following the discovery of the gang and the poached tiger, Thai rangers were put on high alert. 

“This gang has been removed as a threat, but we should be aware that whoever employed them may dispatch more hunters to kill our country’s tigers,” said Petcharat, adding, “Police, rangers and the public must remain vigilant.”

Freeland is now trying to create an information exchange to suppress cross-border poaching and trafficking, which it believes extends to the criminal exploitation of rosewood trees.

Source - TheNation 
.

#Indonesia - Komodo National Park to be closed one year for habitat restoration

The East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) administration has announced its plans to temporarily close Komodo National Park to visitors for one year to increase the local population of Komodo dragons and deer.

“The NTT administration will make [the necessary] arrangements for Komodo National Park,” said NTT Governor Viktor Bungtilu Laiskodat on Friday, as quoted by tempo.co. He did not announce the dates of the temporary closure.

Viktor said that the park's closure was intended to give the provinicial administration easier access in managing the park and developing the dragons' habitat.

 .

.

 He said that individual lizards in the current population were not as big as they used to be, attributing this to a decline in the local deer population due to poaching.  

 Deer are the main prey of the carnivorous Komodo dragons, which can grow as large as 150 kilograms and eat about "80 percent of its body weight in a single feeding", according to National Geographic. This means that a 100-kilogram lizard can eat 80 kg of meat in a single sitting.

Viktor said there was a possibility that the lizards could prey on their own kind if the deer population continued to decline.

“Its natural instinct will emerge when [the population of one of the animals] in the Komodo dragon’s food chain declines. If food is abundant, the Komodo dragons will [employ] a different instinct," he said. "This is why the administration wants to manage the Komodo dragon's habitat by temporarily closing the area to visitors for one year.”

Source - TheJakartaPost