Protect Endangered Wildlife Against Exploitation

During the first quarter of 2023, our team of wildlife warriors continued to work hard with members of the public and in support of law enforcement authorities to fight wildlife crime. In this quarter, our team has already handled 819 wildlife crime cases and facilitated the rescue of 994 live wild animals from illegal wildlife trade and exploitation. Among them were bears, Asian small-clawed otters, pangolins, leopard cats, and a variety of macaques, turtles, tortoises, lorises, and wild bird species.

Bears

As of the end of April 2023, there are a total of 247 bears remaining on bile farms in Vietnam – a 94% reduction since government efforts began to phase out bear bile farming in 2005. During this quarter, nine bears have been transferred from bile farms to sanctuaries in 2023, six of which came from two bile farms in Hanoi’s bear farming hotspot Phuc Tho district. Another of these bears was the last remaining bear on a bile farm in Long An province, earning Long An the title of Vietnam’s 43^rd bear farm-free province and the first of 2023.

Elephant Ivory

ENV logged a total of 90 ivory cases during this quarter. In particular, during a joint enforcement campaign between ENV and local authorities, more than 300 suspected ivory products have been confiscated from souvenir and jewelry shops in Dak Lak province, a popular tourist destination in the Central Highlands. In addition, as part of ENV’s efforts to reduce consumer demand and sale of ivory products in Dak Lak, ENV organized an ivory identification training for relevant law enforcement agencies, where officials were trained on how to identify real and fake ivory products, as well as on the use of relevant legal provisions in handling ivory-related violations. During this quarter, ENV also provided support to law enforcement authorities during their investigation and prosecution of a subject who was involved in smuggling 490 kg of ivory into Vietnam. In February 2023, the subject was sentenced to 13 years in prison and given an additional VND 50 million fine.

Pangolins

In March 2023, Kon Tum City Police confiscated 200 g of pangolin scales from an online seller that ENV had been following since they first advertised tiger claws on Facebook in 2018. The subject was arrested. In another case, a live Sunda pangolin was confiscated from an online seller thanks to a public report to our Wildlife Crime Hotline. The subject was selling various live animals online, and ENV continued to monitor their activity and provide information to the police, eventually resulting in the confiscation of the pangolin and the arrest of the seller.

Primates, turtles & other illegal ‘pets’

The exotic pet trade is on the rise, and ENV receives and handles an increasing number of public reports regarding illegal species being sold on the street, caged in private residences, or advertised online. 389 turtles and tortoises were confiscated or voluntarily transferred during the first quarter. Otters were confiscated from two online sellers. Both cases came as a result of reports to the ENV Hotline by members of the public, with ENV gathering information and collaborating with the relevant authorities. A serval cat was confiscated by Noi Bai Customs after a passenger traveled with it from the Czech Republic. The wildlife was not permitted for import, nor could it be returned, so authorities reached out to ENV for guidance. We worked with our partners to arrange the safe transfer of the serval cat to Hanoi Wildlife Rescue Center. Two lorises, two gibbons, and three leopard cats were among the other species handled by ENV, many of which were kept as pets after being bought online, or in some cases, caught from the wild and confined. In addition, 43 macaques were confiscated or voluntarily transferred to rescue centers.

Internet Crime

ENV's strategy to tackle wildlife cybercrime continues through our internet crime research campaigns and responses to reports from the public about posts and accounts on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and other platforms and websites advertising and selling wildlife. In the first quarter of 2023, 418 online wildlife crime cases were reported to ENV. As a result, dozens of wildlife have been rescued. Specifically, thanks to the cooperation of our social media partners, 5 online wildlife-selling groups consisting of over 33,386 members have been taken down, along with numerous social media accounts and violation links.

Communication and Public Awareness

ENV’s communications team has continued raising public awareness through in-person awareness events in various cities across Vietnam, viral campaigns on social media, and wildlife protection news shared with the local press. To challenge the belief that elephant ivory is a symbol of luxury and good fortune, in February, we released a Public Service Announcement (PSA), “Luxury Party”, which was distributed and broadcast by 54 national TV channels. In addition, the PSA was aired at Buon Ma Thuot Airport and featured on the Dak Lak Provincial People Committee website, as well as on the Dak Lak Department of Information and Communication website.

We at ENV would like to express our gratitude for your ongoing support, which enables us to keep our mission to protect endangered wildlife against exploitation heading in the right direction.

A year since we first launched this campaign to protect endangered wildlife from exploitation, we are glad to say we helped facilitate the rescue of more wildlife than any other year, with 3,223 live wild animals rescued from the illegal wildlife trade. Meanwhile, our caseload came pretty close to last year’s, with 3,405 wildlife crime cases handled by our Wildlife Crime Unit.

In the past year, we had three times the number of live animals rescued than in 2021. This is in part, due to the decree introduced in May 2022 calling for the protection of all wild and migratory birds in Vietnam. Birds comprised 70% of all live animals rescued, with many of them involving 'common' wildlife, alongside highly protected species, such as 23 raptors and 8 hornbills. Numerous cases also involved the dismantling of thousands of meters of bird hunting nets spread across fields. 

Bears

There are a total of 257 bears on farms in Vietnam, a 94% reduction since government efforts began to end bear bile farming in 2005. With over half (54.5%) of these bears being kept in Hanoi, pressure is on the capital to lead by example and get all their remaining bears transferred to sanctuaries. 2022 was the first year ever where a bear bile farmer was convicted for selling bear bile (350 vials of it), and we hope this is a signal of the strict actions to come. Last year, there was a total of 17 voluntary transfers and 6 confiscations of bears in Vietnam. These resulted in Vietnam’s 41^st and 42^nd bear bile farm-free provinces – Binh Phuoc and Thai Binh – with Ha Nam soon to follow with their transfer that has been arranged this year.

Elephant Ivory

Overall, 2022 saw ENV’s Wildlife Crime Unit handle a total of 538 ivory cases. ENV carried out wildlife cybercrime surveys which, combined with public reports, led to 472 ivory internet crime cases being handled. There have been several recent seizures of ivory products as a result of ENV collaborations with police. We have also worked closely with the Department of Communications in Dak Lak in distributing messages to the public regarding the issue. In Dak Lak, the elephant ivory hotspot of Vietnam, we also worked with local businesses to establish the elephant-friendly business campaign. ENV also held a prosecution training in Dak Lak Court, detailing how to handle wildlife crime, with a specific focus on ivory crime.

Macaques, Turtles & other illegal ‘pets’

Last year saw the confiscation and voluntary transfer of 130 macaques and 552 turtles and tortoises. Many of these were thanks to reports from the public to the ENV Wildlife Crime Hotline, of someone keeping them as a pet or selling them on the street. The confiscation of turtles and tortoises was especially high thanks to monitoring missions carried out by ENV’s volunteers to pagodas and other establishments known for keeping or selling turtles. Amongst the other species, there were also 17 leopard cats, 17 squirrels, 11 lorises and 9 otters transferred/confiscated last year – all of which are commonly kept as pets in Vietnam after being bought and sold online, or in some cases, caught from the wild and caged by their captor. The prevalence of the illegal and exotic pet trade continues to be fought by ENV’s strategy to fight wildlife cybercrime.

Internet Crime

ENV have tried to keep a lid on the trading of wildlife on the internet, through our internet crime research campaigns and responses to reports from the public of accounts on Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms. In total, we handled 1,686 online wildlife crime cases. We also facilitated the shutdown of 111 online wildlife selling groups, comprising over 428,000 members. Our partnerships with key social media platforms, such as Facebook, TikTok, Zalo and Google continued to yield results, with the deactivation of many accounts and the deletion of links.

Communication and Public Awareness

Recent communications since our last project report included our Wildlife Crime Bulletin Issue 2, the State of the Trade in Vietnam: Rhino Horn report, the Law Enforcement Responsiveness Report, Guidance on Handling Wildlife Crime on the Internet, and a Prosecution Review: Wildlife Trafficking Cases in Vietnam 2021. Each of these reports strives to build a clearer picture of the position of wildlife crime in Vietnam, and to foster urgency amongst authorities and the public on the need to take action, as well as the most effective action to take.

We were finally able to hold numerous volunteer recruitment and training events in person, increasing our reach across Vietnam with volunteers hosting awareness events in public spaces in their cities, and assisting in the monitoring of wildlife crime at locations across their area. At public awareness events, the volunteers engaged the public and encouraged them to sign pledges not to consume wildlife. The focus of these events was on traditional medicines made from wildlife, such as tiger bone glue, rhino horn, and bear bile. These products continue to be sold and consumed due to misinformation fueling demand, whereby people believe they are a type of ‘magic medicine’. ENV also highlighted this issue at the Hanoi Half Marathon, with the message ‘Wildlife is NOT medicine!’.

ENV thanks all of you for your immense support on this project for the past year. We are so glad we could continue to make progress in the fight to protect wildlife from exploitation.

We’re pleased to announce our Wildlife Crime Unit has handled 1,862 wildlife crime cases from January to June 2022, involving 4,218 violations. We have also helped facilitate the rescue of more than 1,630 live wild animals from the illegal wildlife trade so far this year.

Many of these are thanks to reports from the public, with our Wildlife Crime Hotline receiving around 10 reports every day. All in all, there have been 1,336 birds rescued, 123 mammals rescued and 165 reptiles rescued from January to June 2022. This has included numerous animals classified by the IUCN as ‘Vulnerable’, ‘Endangered’ and ‘Critically Endangered’. We’ll focus on a few species where significant progress has been made these last few months:

Turtles

ENV redistributed the updated Vietnam Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle ID Book. This resource is frequently used by authorities and wildlife rescue centers, ensuring appropriate action is taken depending on the particular species. In this issue, we updated the book with new species information, maps showing the latest distribution of species and up-to-date wildlife protection laws.

Keeping turtles and tortoises in the wild (and out of pagodas and people’s homes) takes a lot of collaboration and commitment by ENV, the authorities, the public and pagodas. Turtles are often sold in the city by street sellers, after being captured from the wild. People will buy them for ‘release’ in pagodas, for rescue purposes and for keeping as a pet. ENV combats this by working to educate the public to never buy wildlife since it funds the illegal wildlife trade, and to instead report the violation to the ENV Hotline. You can watch our latest Hotline PSA here.

To combat the pagoda ‘release’ practices, we collaborate closely with pagodas, working together to ensure no wildlife is released on the premises. Sometimes, worshippers still manage to bring wildlife in for ‘release’, believing it to bring them good karma. To catch these instances, we run pagoda monitoring campaigns with the support of our Wildlife Protection Volunteer Network. In June, we had 22 volunteers participate in the survey of 159 pagodas across 11 districts of Hanoi, yielding two pagodas with a violation. The monitoring mission is also being carried out across HCMC, yielding the confiscation/transfer of over 40 turtles so far!

Bears

There were three confiscations from bear traffickers, and four voluntary transfers from bear farmers across May-July, which saw the rescue of 16 Asiatic black bears! They are now living out their days free from the inhumane bear bile industry and four-walled prison, able to explore, eat, play and tap into their natural instincts for the first time in about 20 years.

The most recent transfer was on July 27^th, from Ho Chi Minh City by a bear owner that ENV had been in communication with for some time. Back in November 2021, he still had three bears and he was thoughtful about transferring them to a sanctuary, informing us he would discuss it with his family. Unfortunately, in that time two of the bears passed away, and we’re grateful he decided it was at last time to give up his final bear. It was initially transferred to Cu Chi Wildlife Rescue Station, while the Bear Sanctuary in Cat Tien prepared paperwork to officially receive it.

Rhinos

In June, ENV intelligence on a wildlife trafficker helped police secure his arrest, as well as the confiscation of a 164 g rhino horn piece. The subject had been on our radar since August 2020 when we received a report from a member of the public about a dead tiger and tiger products being advertised for sale on Facebook. We monitored him and shared evidence with the authorities. Thanks to decisive actions of Yen Thanh District Police, they were able to catch this criminal red-handed and he will be prosecuted for his crimes. This case serves as deterrence to others, while disrupting the smooth operation of wildlife trafficking networks.

In another case, two subjects were sentenced to prison for 18 and 15 months, respectively. These subjects were involved in the sale of 100 g of rhino horn, which was confiscated by the police in Gai Lai province back in November 2021. We’re pleased the court gave the subjects prison time, especially since the subjects had been warned before by ENV for advertising wildlife online. Despite this, they continued to make new accounts and re-offend, showing clear contempt for the law.

On rhino horn cases, as with all wildlife crime cases, we follow from start to finish to ensure the criminal receives the punishment that fits the crime. These efforts are to protect critically endangered rhinos from being so senselessly slaughtered for their horns to meet demand in Vietnam and China.

Pangolins

On the morning of July 12^th, 2022, the People’s Court of Hanoi sentenced four women to a combined total of 18 years in prison for illegally trading and transporting 984 kg of pangolin scales. These scales were valued to be worth 1.3 billion VND (equivalent to $55,570). The arrests were made back in March 29^th, 2021, when the large shipment of African tree pangolin scales was confiscated. The mastermind behind the operation received seven years in prison, the intermediary received five years, the accomplice received four years and the subject transporting the goods received two years.

Macaques and the exotic pet trade

As always, there have been numerous macaque confiscations this year, as they are often captured from the wild to be kept as pets. They are one of the most common wildlife kept as pets in Vietnam in 2022, with 67 macaques confiscated/transferred from January to June thanks to ENV facilitating wildlife rescues. These were followed by 12 leopard cats, 3 otters and overtaken by 145 turtles and tortoises.

The prevalence of the illegal and exotic pet trade is something ENV continues to fight through internet crime research campaigns, reports from the public, public awareness campaigns and our partnerships with key social media platforms, such as Facebook, TikTok and Zalo.

Policy and Legislation

In support of law enforcement and relevant agencies, we distributed our Wildlife Crime Bulletin, offering an insight into the current issues we face in the fight to end Vietnam’s illegal wildlife trade and proposing solutions to build a reality of wildlife protection. We have also hosted three prosecution trainings so far this year, sharing our first-hand experience handling wildlife crime cases and discussing issues faced by law enforcement in tackling wildlife crime.

All of the ENV team thanks you for enabling our efforts in the fight to end the illegal wildlife trade. With your generous support, we continue to achieve much-needed progress in protecting endangered wildlife from exploitation.

Thank you so much for all the support you have provided so far on our project to protect endangered wildlife from exploitation.

We’re already three months in, and we cannot wait to tell you about the progress we’ve made thus far. The species we’ve helped to rescue from the illegal wildlife trade since this project began include both those that are endangered, and those that are stable in population, but sadly still exploited by the trade. These included Asiatic black bears, Asian small-clawed otters, pangolins, leopard cats, and various macaque, turtle, tortoise, lizard, snake and bird species, among others.

We hit a record high number of cases in 2021, with our Wildlife Crime Unit handling 3,703 cases. From these cases, there were 1,058 live wild animals rescued from the illegal wildlife trade. From January to February 2022, we helped facilitate the rescue of 448 animals. Thank you to everyone who supported us in our work, especially over the holiday season and into the new year.

There was a big turtle seizure in December, where 122 turtles, weighing 186 kg were confiscated from a supplier in HCMC. This was an important case, finding the turtles from the source, and preventing their distribution amongst the smaller-scale street sellers in the city, who are notoriously difficult to pin down, with them typically selling only 1 or 2 turtles at one time. The species confiscated included the Amboina box turtle (Vulnerable), giant Asian pond turtles (Vulnerable), yellow-headed temple turtle (Critically Endangered), Mekong snail-eating turtle (Vulnerable), and the elongated tortoise (Critically Endangered). All had either ‘Vulnerable’ or ‘Critically Endangered’ conservation status, according to the IUCN.

During this reporting period, a total of nine bears were finally transferred from three facilities in Binh Duong province. One ex-bear owner was especially helpful in encouraging bear owners at one of the facilities to give up their bears. He said, “After learning about the bear sanctuaries in Vietnam, I realized that my bears deserve to have a better life. So, I transferred my bears and have tried to encourage others to do so too.” In December 2021, bear Tu Do (Freedom) was also transferred from farm to sanctuary, making Son La province the next bear bile farm-free province!

In January, a report from a member of the public enabled the confiscation of 7 caged wild birds. The informant suspected the subject had caught the birds in the wild with the intention of selling them. The Kon Tum Forest Protection Department (FPD) visited the residence, and confiscated 6 orange-bellied leafbirds and a crimson sunbird at the residence. Luckily, they were all released back into the wild they had been caught from!

As always, we have handled many macaque cases in this period, since they unfortunately continue to be a popular exotic pet. They are abundant in the exotic pet trade, being both bought from sellers and caught from the wild in Vietnam. One particular macaque case which stood out, however, was one where the subject also voluntarily gave up an eagle in his possession after the Binh Phuoc FPD educated him on the harms of keeping wildlife. In turned out that the eagle and macaque were both gifts to his late father, which he didn’t know what to do with besides keep looking after them. This demonstrates the role awareness plays in keeping animals out of the illegal wildlife trade. Had he fully considered the options, and been informed on ENV’s hotline service, he would have likely arranged the transfer of both of the animals sooner. The FPD played a key role here in educating the subject, and Binh Phuoc have been a province to continually take quick actions against wildlife crimes. We commend their sincere commitment to the cause!

ENV welcomed in the Year of the Tiger by speaking to the media and officials about the tiger problem. Unfortunately, tigers are already functionally extinct in Vietnam, however, many remain in captivity legally and illegally. Tiger bone glue is made, consumed, and trafficked in Vietnam, enabled largely by the existence of illegal tiger farms in the basements of Nghe An province. There also exists a potential risk of non-commercial facilities breeding tigers to the point the captive tiger population becomes uncontrollable, allowing for leakage into the illegal wildlife trade. ENV has plans to put the tiger issue at the forefront of our efforts this year.

A sign of the tides changing in Vietnam with regards to prosecution is the case where a 14-year prison sentence was given to a subject for importing 126 kg of rhino horn into Noi Bai Airport. This is the highest punishment ever received by a wildlife criminal, and comes very close to the current maximum sentence of 15 years. The laws have been in place since the revisions to the Penal Code in 2018, and we now begin to see them applied to their fullest extent.

Thank you again, for your kindness in protecting vulnerable animals from exploitation and imminent extinction in Vietnam and beyond.