Almost 2,000 wild birds – most of them dead – were seized from an alleged major trader’s home in Prey Veng province, local NGO Wildlife Alliance announced last week.
A post on Wildlife Alliance’s website says the Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team (WRRT) – a law enforcement unit supported by the group – raided the home following a tip-off and found 1,851 wild birds and five snakes.
“Only 25 birds were still alive. The rest were packed in coolers, ready to be sold. Bags of birds were also found behind the house,” the post says.
According to WA, the 41-year-old female trader, whom they did not name, was likely “part of a larger operation and responsible for supplying many of the wild bird traders that operate at the Neak Loeung ferry crossing”.
She was arrested at the scene.
In a separate incident, customs officials confiscated 29.5 kilograms of elephant ivory at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, according to local reports on Saturday.
The smuggled ivory was reportedly found in the suitcase of a Vietnamese national in transit at the airport between flights from Angola to Cambodia.
Kanitha Krishnasamy, program manager for TRAFFIC in Southeast Asia, said Cambodia “appears to be an increasingly common transit point [for smuggled ivory] based on the rising number of seizures implicating the country”.
