Mexico Does Little to Stop Animal Endangerment Laws
Much like the drug-trade, something that we know is there but is very difficult to stop, there is an illegal market in Mexico that captures endangered species and sells them at local markets. Unfortunately, Mexico is doing little to enforce their laws against the ownership of exotic/endangered animals.
The United States based program in Mexico, Defenders of Wildlife, are very helpless in this situation. They simply do not have the funds or the man power to return all of these animals to their natural habitats.
One of these such markets is the Sonora Market in Mexico City. It’s quite difficult for the Defenders of Wildlife to catch vendors in the act because of the rate of corruption in the justice system. Crooked cops give vendors a heads up when the Defenders of Wildlife are coming for an inspection so that they can hide the animals.
Someo of the animals sold include squirrel monkeys, boas, yellow-headed parrots, jaquars, eagles, and crocodiles. Some of them are sold for as little as $200.
Image Credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/Squirrel_monkey.jpg/449px-Squirrel_monkey.jpg
The law in Mexico can imprison someone for 12 years is they are found having/selling/capturing an endangered animal. Unfortunately, this law is very rarely enforced as there are numerous cops patrolling the market who do nothing about this issue.
Defenders of Wildlife estimated that up to 80,000 parrots were captured illegally in Mexico last year. A conservationist, Juan Carlos Cantu, said that around 80% of parrots in particular die before they are even sold.
“It’s like the drug trade: we know where they are but there is nothing we can do. As long as there is demand, there will be a market,” Cantu said.
I think that this situation needs to be resolved with a better system. Now that we know that this corruption is going on, we can attack these criminals at their source, the markets. I think that more people should be involved in this problem, as the Defenders of Wildlife need help.
Source for article:
mikeporter said,
March 3, 2007 at 5:31 pm
According to the website, it says that they generally estimate that between 65,000 and 78,500 parrots are trapped each year. If they estimate that 80,000 parrots were captured last year, that can’t be a good sign!
Another thing I read there was that parrot trappers claim that they do it largely for the trade to the U.S., but only 4-14% of the captured parrots are actually sent to the U.S. This low rate MAY be a sign that many of these trappers are simply amatuers trying to make a buck. Do you think that that percent is the percent of the total number of parrots captured, or the number of parrots who survive to the market?
You’d think that with two countries involved, border controls, and sheer distance, more of these parrots would be known about, and more perpetrators would be apprehended.
abbyr said,
March 4, 2007 at 9:30 pm
I wonder why they are capturing these animals. It is so sad that people are taking them out of their natural environment and only God knows for what purpose. It also says something negative about their government and the level of corruption that is going on. Mike commented and said that the trappers might be trying to make a buck, but what I dont understand is from who? Who would want to buy an illegally captured parrot, unless you didn’t know it?