Fury in Ecuador: Man claims to have exported iguanas from Galapagos Islands to Uganda

a Indonesian Youtube He boasts of showing a wooden box wrapped in plastic and glued in Uganda, Africa, in which he fetches a reptile that he has taken out of the basket after being pulled out of several strips of newspaper:Welcome to the land of the Galapagos Iguana. This is the male. It will be iguana or the land of the Galapagos Conolophus subcristatusAnd the Settlement in the Ecuadorean archipelago It is distributed in the islands of Isabella, Baltra, North Seymour, Fernandina, South Plaza, Santa Cruz and some smaller islands.

The Conolophus subcristatus It is a type of reptile of the family iguana. Iguanodes or iguanodes are a family of scaly sauropods that includes different genera of lizards from the American continent, known as iguanas. The Conolophus subcristatusThe species shown in the controversial video is only found in the Galapagos Islands.

In the video that was uploaded seven months ago on the channel Biography Karepku Channel by Rivo CahyonoAnd the Asian he presents and claims that reptiles bred in Uganda along with other animals “began to become extinct,” he said. “It is a very beautiful animal that is found only in the Galapagos Islands and in this world there are only 5,000 to 10,000 individuals. This is the second time we importThen a female iguana appears.

This is a species in the Vulnerability category, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. or IUCN for its English acronym. According to the descriptions on the site and the channel, the video was recorded in Jakarta, Indonesia. On the same YouTube channel, Citizen has other videos showing a house full of exotic wild animals.

There is a link on the YouTube channel that redirects to the site www.tokopedia.com Dedicated to delivering animals to the home: “We make sure that all animals transported are in good health and have standard animal packaging,” the website asserts.

This will be another case of the wildlife trade in the islands. last year, a A police officer tried to retrieve 185 Galapagos tortoises hidden in a suitcase from their habitat and smuggled them. So far in 2018, more than a hundred baby turtles have been lost at the Arnaldo Tupiza Breeding Center in Isabella. By extracting the species in pairs, sellers begin to reproduce and manipulate them for sale.

In Ecuador, the purchase, sale, transportation, and possession of wild animals are punishable by criminal law. This felony is punishable by imprisonment from one to three years. It can be exacerbated by the circumstances and its relationship to other crimes.

The Ecuador’s Ministry of Environment He denounced the truth in front of public opinion and I expect what was recorded in the video available on the Internet about “Possible case of illegal trade in Galápagos land iguanas by an Asian national“Because it shows someone displaying a kind of fragile environment with plants and animals that are unique in the world and protected by Ecuadorean laws.

In addition, in the face of the video circulating on social networks about the possible illegal sale of the territory of the Galapagos by an Indonesian citizen, “This state portfolio categorically rejects the promotion and dissemination of graphic or audiovisual content that encourages the purchase and/or consumption of wild species.The Ministry of Environment said in a statement.

The State Environmental Preserve of Ecuador added that it had asked the Attorney General’s Office to investigate the origin of the reptiles and that although “the event did not take place in Ecuadorean territory,” referring to the video, the protected species comes from Ecuador and that transporting them would mean a criminal act.

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