Smuggled Indian star turtles repatriated to its habitat in India

Multa Fidrus The Jakarta Post Tangerang

The Indonesian government repatriated 19 out of 61 Indian star tortoise (geochelone elegans) smuggled into the country throughSoekarno-Hatta International Airport in November to its original habitat in India on Thursday.

“Those turtles will fly with Malaysian Airline to India this evening. We will see them off along with Customs officers, airport security, officials form the Forestry Ministry and NGS activists,” Musyaffak Fauzi, head of airport quarantine center said at his office.

According to Mustaffak, as many as 61 land turtles were smuggled into the country on Nov. 7 by an unidientified foreigner and were confiscated by customs officers after they were left at terminal II. 47 of the turtles were identified as the Indian star tortoise.

Customs officers then handed down the smuggled turtles to the quarantine center for further handling. Unfortunately, 28 of the protected species died on arrival at the airport due to poor treatment.

“This is the first animal repatriation from Indonesia to other country we ever did as form of international cooperation. We have several times received repatriation of wild animals from other country,” he said.

He said the smuggling of animal from overseas into the country violated the 1992 law on animal, fish and plants quarantine and the 1990 law on biodiversity and ecosystem conservation becuase of it harms Indonesia economically.

“Animal and plants smuggling from overseas will harm Indonesia economically because they could threat the originity of Indonesian nuftah plasma,” he said addingf that . wild animal trafficking transaction at international market reached up to US$180 billion.

Musyaffak the inernational transaction had triggered the trafficking and the smuggling of protected species from and to Indonesia to be rampant to happen.

Meanwhile, Puja Utama head of animal distribution control department at the Forestry Ministry said that the total population of the Indian star tortoise curently reached up to 32,500 all over the world.

“But if the illegal animal trafficking continues, sooner or later the species will face extinction,” he said.

He added that in domestic market, the price of a big Indian star tortoise measuring between 10 and 15 centi meters reach up to Rp 30 millions while the small ones measuring 5 up to centimeters were normally sold between Rp 8 and 10 millions.