Over 200 endangered tortoises labelled as ‘seafood’ seized

Live tortoises, stuffed inside cloth sacks and packed in six boxes labelled as “dried seafood”, were being smuggled out to Kuala Lumpur

Customs officers have seized 206 live star tortoises listed as an endangered species while they were being smuggled to Malaysia in boxes labelled as ‘dried seafood’.

The Biodiversity, Cultural and National Heritage Protection Division of Sri Lanka customs seized the live tortoises at the Air Cargo Exports Terminal of the Colombo international airport (BIA) on Saturday, Customs sources said.According to the Customs officials, it was the largest seizure, since mid-2015, when a bid to smuggle 124 tortoises was foiled.

Lankan star tortoises were the same species (Geochelone elegans) as those found in India and Pakistan but have a specific geographic identity, customs officials said.

“It is one of the most beautiful tortoise species found in the world and due to the same reason they have been highly sought after in the illegal pet trade, especially in the South East Asian countries,” they said.

“As a result, the species has become threatened with extinction and included in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of species and also in Appendix I of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES),” the officials added.

They said that according to the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance (section 40), any attempt to export any mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, coral or invertebrate, eggs, among others, without the permission of the Director General of the Wildlife Conservation Department is an offence and also simultaneously violates the Customs Ordinance.