Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Bangkok authorities bust animal smuggler

Bangkok authorities have busted a man who attempted to board a plane carrying enough creatures to start a small zoo.

The Indonesian smuggler's three suitcases contained:
2 boa constrictors
34 ball pythons
26 lizards of assorted kinds
6 Argentine horned frogs
18 baboon spiders
22 squirrels
a parrot
and close to 150 tortoises of various species

Many of the creatures in the man's suitcase menagerie were from rare and endangered species, including a plowshare tortoise, of which fewer than a thousand exist. Traffic says the man bought all the animals at Bangkok's Chatuchak market, a notorious hub for trading in rare animals.

Source