Venomous vipers found on Thailand-India flight last week illustrates ‘troubling’ trend driven by exotic pet trade, anti-smuggling group says
Venomous vipers found in checked bags on a flight from Thailand to India illustrate a “very troubling” trend in wildlife trafficking driven by the exotic pet trade, an NGO warned on Tuesday.
Among them were several spider-tailed horned vipers, a venomous species only described by scientists in 2006 and classed as “near-threatened” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
The reptiles are among more than 7,000 animals, dead and alive, that have been seized along the Thailand-India air route in the past three-and-a-half years, said Traffic, a UK-based group that battles the smuggling of wild animals and plants.
“The almost-weekly discoveries and diversity of wildlife en route to India is very troubling,” said Traffic’s Southeast Asia director Kanitha Krishnasamy.
