An alarming amount of ‘monkey business’ continuing to be conducted online has shocked animal activists concerned over exotic animals being smuggled into the country.
They are urging the authorities to crack down following advertisements on social media offering baby baboons for sale.
The tiny baboons are being allegedly smuggled into Bahrain across land borders for between BD120 and BD220 and they grow into powerful primates with large jaws, sharp teeth and claws.
The Supreme Council for Environment (SCE) Biodiversity Directorate has confirmed a case where a person was harmed by a baboon but released no further details.
“Illegal trafficking of animals and endangered species is a global problem, with new ways of smuggling being devised day after day,” the directorate told the GDN.
“Exotic animals don’t belong in an ‘at-home’ environment as pets and these can only thrive normally in their own natural habitats.
Instincts
“To take these animals out of their habitats and punish them for acting according to their own instincts – such as hunting – by removing their natural features through declawing and underfeeding and other methods is cruel and unfair.
“An often-forgotten danger is the potential for these animals to be carriers of zoonotic diseases, which makes them a great risk to human health.”
The SCE has joined hands with several countries to tackle animal smuggling. The council joined the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and recently attended a three-day workshop by the International Fund for Animal Welfare and the Environmental Investigation Agency on combating wildlife cybercrime by stopping the illegal trade of protected species.
A worldwide enforcement operation against wildlife and timber crime co-ordinated by Interpol and the World Customs Organisation – Called Operation Thunder 2021 – resulted in 1,002 seizures of wildlife and forestry products from 118 countries, with 300 offenders apprehended.
Seizures included 171 live birds, 531 turtles and tortoises, 336 reptiles in addition to 29 big cats.
Observers suggest that Covid-19 restrictions and a decline in social activities over the past couple of years prompted some people to adopt pets, including exotic animals, ‘to fill the void’ in their lives.
The SCE Biodiversity Directorate, however, told the GDN that there had not been an increase in the number of baby baboons recorded by the council as raised illegally in Bahrain. Actual figures have not been released.
Working alongside the SCE and the Municipalities Affairs and Agriculture Ministry’s Animal Wealth Directorate is the Bahrain Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (BSPCA).
“Animal smuggling happens in Bahrain because there is a market for exotic pets,” claimed BSPCA deputy chairwoman Yasmin Al Hilli. “Over the years, there have been many instances of baboons escaping from residential areas. Baboons are wild animals and as they become sexually mature, they also turn aggressive.
“Until we can raise awareness that such animals cannot be domesticated, smuggling will continue.
“The BSPCA has worked closely with the Interior Ministry and seen numerous cases of snakes and crocodiles amongst other exotic animals in homes where they do not belong.
“We even collaborated with Saudi Arabian authorities in the case of a person trying to smuggle a lion cub across the border.”
Bahrain has issued a law on Regulating and Controlling International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora. It stipulates that those who hunt or trade in these species will face jail time and/or a fine.
The GDN previously reported that Article 107 in the 2018 Public Health Law doesn’t differentiate between family pets and animals that should be kept in farms or left in the wild. It states that keeping any type of animal or bird at home, in a barn, a cage, or any other state is punishable with up to three years in jail, a fine not exceeding BD300 – or both – should it cause a threat to safety, public health or the environment.
There are six species of baboon: the hamadryas baboon, the Guinea baboon, the olive baboon, the yellow baboon, the Kinda baboon and the chacma baboon. Each species is native to one of six areas of Africa and the hamadryas baboon is also native to part of the Arabian Peninsula.
Last year, Arab News reported that baboons had appeared in several neighbourhoods in the Saudi capital city of Riyadh. The animals were believed to be natives of the Western Region’s Sarawat mountains, mostly in the southwestern areas from Taif to Asir and beyond. The sightings in the Central Region, however, were new.
reem@gdnmedia.bh
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