Record haul of endangered sea turtles bound for China seized in Vietnam
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 26 November, 2014, 3:35am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 26 November, 2014, 3:35am
Agence France-Presse in Hanoi
Nha Trang police seized more than more than a thousand specimens of the endangered sea turtles from two downtown warehouses on November 20, 2014. Photo: Screenshot via Vietweek/YouTube
Vietnam's environmental police seized a record haul of more than 1,000 endangered sea turtles being prepared for illegal export to China, an official said.
"The turtles were all dead," Le Hong Thai, a department official, said. "They were meant to be processed into handicrafts for export to China."
The raids were made on Wednesday last week in the resort town of Nha Trang.
"The case is under investigation, so we cannot reveal the number of detainees or any other details," Thai said.
The turtles weighed around 1,359 kilos in total, police said. Photo: Screenshot via Vietweek/YouTube
Marine turtles are fully protected under Vietnamese law. Hunting and trading, including the storing, of any of the five native species is a criminal offence, according to local media reports.
Scores of Vietnamese have been arrested over the past years for catching or trading sea turtles.
Nguyen Phuong Dung, the director of conservation group Education for Nature-Vietnam, welcomed the raid but said it must be followed with legal penalties for those involved.
Courts "need to send the message that Vietnam is serious about prosecuting and punishing" crimes involving endangered species, she said.
Environmental groups say Vietnam is one of the world's worst countries for trade in endangered species.
Beijing said the US$102,000 fines imposed by a Philippines court on each of nine Chinese fishermen for catching sea turtles in a disputed South China Sea shoal had violated its sovereignty, as it urged Manila to release them. "We believe the Philippine government illegally seized the Chinese fishing boat and fishermen in waters near the Nansha islands and made a so-called judicial judgment that violated China's sovereignty and rights of administration," a foreign ministry spokeswoman said.
