Known Wildlife Trafficker Caught on Video, PETA Asia Demands Investigation
Known Wildlife Trafficker Caught on Video, PETA Asia Demands Investigation
Denpasar, Bali – Bali’s Satria Bird Market has been found yet again to be the site of illegal wildlife trafficking, and PETA Asia is calling on authorities to investigate it. After capturing video footage of a shop owner at the market selling monkeys from outside the island and a slow loris – both illegal in Bali – the group sent a letter calling on law-enforcement authorities and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry for an investigation and for appropriate charges to be filed.
This is the third time in as many years that illegal wildlife trafficking has been exposed at the market. In January 2022, the same shop was caught selling monkeys, who were then confiscated. The shop’s owner was issued a warning and agreed never to sell monkeys again, yet he has continued to sell the illegally imported animals.
“The ministry knows that illegal wildlife sales have been taking place at Satria Bird Market for years, yet its lax oversight and feeble warnings have done nothing to deter vendors,” says PETA Asia Senior Vice President Jason Baker. “PETA is calling on the authorities to finally clamp down on these traffickers so that no more vulnerable animals will be kidnapped from their forest homes to be put up for sale.”
PETA Asia’s letter notes that the slow loris was kept in a barren cage with no water and that poor sanitation at the shop is a serious health risk. The slow loris is a protected species, and the importation of monkeys into Bali is illegal because they have the potential to carry rabies. Hunters often kill mother monkeys in nature and abduct the babies to sell them to vendors.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview – urges everyone never to buy wild animals or support animal trafficking. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]
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