Animal smuggling trade a huge challenge
THE THREE men crossed the US southern border into Texas with a black duffel bag, on an apparent mission to deliver their lucrative product to the US.
But they caught wind of border agents nearby, preparing to intercept them near Brownsville, officials said.
It led to a calculation: Now what? And what to do with the unconscious tiger cub weighing down the duffel bag?
The men retreated back into Mexico, and the 3- or 4-month-old male cub became an unexpected ward of US Customs and Border Protection.
“Not an average day in the field,” Irma Chapa, a spokesperson for the Rio Grande Valley sector of CBP, said in a tweet.
Chapa said the tiger cub was expected to make a full recovery, and CBS affiliate KHOU reported that the cub was taken to Brownsville’s Gladys Porter Zoo. Luckily for the tiger, the zoo specialises in handling endangered species.
The cub was an apparent node in the billion-dollar trade of animal smuggling, and it is in unfortunate company – a tiger cub bought by an American teenager was intercepted at a checkpoint in California last year. In 2010, border agents recovered a caged and abandoned tiger in Laredo, another Texas border town.
About 350 million plants and animals are sold around the world annually, generating between $7 billion (R87.5bn) and $23bn, Washington-based group Defenders of Wildlife said in a report.
Latin America, one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, has emerged as a fulcrum in the endangered and exotic species trade feeding the booming US market. A quarter of the 50 000 animals and wildlife products seized at American ports of entry from 2005 to 2014 originated in Latin America. Smugglers exploit the sometimes porous border with Mexico to send endangered animals and illegal animal products into the US.
Queen conch shells housing snails, prized by seafood chefs but subject to fishing bans in Florida, are the most commonly smuggled species from Latin America, the group found. Turtles and iguanas are also trafficked in large numbers, with crocodiles smuggled and skinned for boot and belt leather. In March, federal agents found a shipment of cobras hidden in potato chip cans.