Help Stop Illegal Wildlife Trafficking

The Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team arrested the owner of a traditional medicine shop in Kampong Speu, Cambodia for selling 16 species of wildlife, including rare and endangered species. One of the team’s informants tipped them off to the shop, leading them to investigat3 and raid the shop. The team rescued live Critically Endangered pangolins, civets, rare tortoises, and water monitors. They also confiscated 41 Vulnerable sun and moon bear claws, 23 Endangered dhole teeth, Vulnerable sambar deer antlers, 11 boar tusks, and several liters of loris and red muntjac blood mixed with rice wine. 

The shop owner openly sold plenty of traditional medicines but secretly sold wildlife illegally. He admitted that some of the wildlife was taken from the Phnom Aural Wildlife Sanctuary in the Cardamom Mountains as well as from other countries, including star tortoises which are native to India and Sri Lanka. The wildlife was all taken Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center where they will be assessed, rehabilitated, and hopefully released back into protected habitat. The wildlife products were all confiscated and destroyed.

Traditional medicine poses a serious threat to many wildlife species and is driving some species, such as pangolins, to the brink of extinction. Thank you for supporting Wildlife Alliance’s Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team and for helping them stomp out wildlife trafficking.