Siamangs rescued days after kangaroos: Is illegal trade in exotic species booming in eastern states?

SILCHAR/KOLKATA: The Assam forest department on April 12 seized five caged siamangs from a vehicle in the state’s Karbi Anglong district, reinforcing suspicions of a vibrant and completely illegal trade in exotic species, some of which are believed to originate from wildlife farms across the border in Myanmar.

The move comes 12 days after three kangaroos were found wandering around in a forested patch near Jalpaiguri; the carcass of a fourth was found a day later. Earlier, on March 12, police seized a kangaroo from a truck on the Assam-West Bengal border.

Kangaroos are endemic to Australia; siamangs to SouthEast Asia.

Jhon Das, the subdivisional police officer in West Karbi Anglong’s Bokajan said the animals were discovered during a routine check of a Maruti Ecco van coming from Dimapur.

“At around 5:30pm on Tuesday, officials from Dilai police station stopped the vehicle and found that there were some caged animals inside. The two persons inside the vehicle tried to flee but our officials managed to catch them,” Das added. The two have been identified as Habibur Rahman (46) and Janab Khan (50), both residents of Sangaiyumpham village in Thoubal district of Manipur, police said. Vipin Bansal, assistant district forest official of Karbi Anglong East Division, said of the seized animals: “One is an adult, the rest four are juveniles.”

The black-furred siamang is an ape and the largest of the gibbon species. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), of which India is a signatory, lists siamangs in Appendix 1, which means they are under threat of “extinction” and trade in the species is “permitted only in exceptional circumstances”.

In the March 12 case involving the kangaroos, police detained the driver and cleaner of the truck (both from Hyderabad) who produced letters from the Indore zoo.

The two documents produced were a “Transit Permission letter” and a “Purchase Order”, both signed by the curator of the Kamla Nehru Prani Sangrahalay, popularly known as the Indore zoo. “One red kangaroo was being donated to us by a man named Thagtee based in Mizoram. He had contacted us saying that he was the owner of a farm dealing with exotic animals. It was, however, not the first time that he has donated animals to the Indore zoo. A few months back he had donated some budgerigars,” said Nihar Parulekar, curator of the zoo. The budgerigar is a bird widely in demand as a pet . A kangaroo is entirely different. Thagtee’s motives for wanting to give away kangaroos aren’t clear.

The other end of the chain led the police to investigate Thagtee, owner of the Buennel Farm in Mizoram. Yet, investigators have virtually no information about this man so far, failing to trace him. HT managed to procure a phone number reportedly belonging to Thagtee, but his phone was switched off, with SMS queries going unanswered.

The Mizoram forest department says it has no knowledge of farms dealing with exotic animals. The farm doesn’t have a website. No address was mentioned on the documents apart from Buennel Farm. But the failed transaction has triggered suspicion that illegal farms could be operating along the Indo-Myanmar border, and dealing with exotic species.