Daily Times

KARACHI: A Sindh Wildlife Department team raided a shop in Khadda Market, Lyari later on Friday evening and seized 150 kilograms (kgs) of meat and dried body parts of freshwater turtles and 200 kgs of pangolin scales from the premise.

According to Sindh Wildlife Department’s officials, the value of confiscated meat, scales and body parts of the endangered wild animals is estimated to be $90,000 (approximately Rs11, 500,000) in the international market.

Turtle and pangolin are precious wildlife species. Pangolins are considered the most trafficked mammals. There are eight species of pangolins but in only the Indian pangolin is found in sandy and hilly areas of Sindh and Baluchistan. The Indian pangolin is listed as ‘endangered’ in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species since 2009.According to World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-P), pangolin is a harmless wild animal that eats ants and termites. It is best known as an animal that controls pests.

According to a recent study conducted by the University of Karachi’s Department of Zoology, there are eight species of freshwater turtles found in Indus River system and its tributaries. These include spotted pond turtle, crowned river turtle, brown roofed turtle, Indian roofed turtle, Indian narrow-headed soft- shell turtle, Indian soft-shell turtle and Indian peacock soft -shell turtle. “Turtles are important wildlife and they play an important role in ecological balance of an aquatic ecosystem,” stated the study. “They (turtles) act as natural recyclers and maintain a healthy environment in wetlands by scavenging and filtering water contents and removing debris and other contaminants from a wetland,” disclosed the study.

However, in recent years, the illegal trafficking of both the pangolin and freshwater turtle has risen. “The meat and body parts of the freshwater turtles and scales of pangolin were supposed to be smuggled to China, but we have foiled the attempt of trafficking,” Taj Mohammad Shaikh, the Provincial Conservator at Sindh Wildlife Department told Daily Times. He said that his department lodged a case under the Wildlife Act 2001. However, nobody has been arrested yet and the department is yet to decide what to do with the animal remains.

“When we conducted the raid, no one was there. We found the animal remains packed in plastic bags and recovered them,” said Shaikh. “We will soon conduct an investigation and hold the culprits accountable,” he told Daily Times.

Published in Daily Times, October 28^th 2018.