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| Authorities displaying the suitcase in which a dozen lorises, 11 pythons and a marmoset were found © TRAFFIC |
Bangkok, Thailand, 11th July 2012—Lorises appear to be the preferred target of wildlife traffickers, turning up in markets around the South-East Asian region and in seizures—including the dozen found in a traveller’s suitcase at Suvarnabhumi International Airport this morning.
Authorities at Thailand’s largest and busiest airport found the lorises stuffed in cloth bags inside the suitcase of a Kuwait bound traveller, who was also carrying 11 pythons and one marmoset in her luggage. Alert officers at the luggage-scanning counter of the airport noticed something odd about the x-ray images of the woman’s bag and found the animals when they opened it for examination.
As a downside of their cute, wide-eyed appeal, slow lorises are in high demand as pets not only in Southeast Asia but globally. The trade is ongoing in spite of a worldwide ban on international commercial trade that has been in place since 2007. Read more at traffic.org
