International protest over N.Z. reaction to endangered species

Press, 11 July 1980, Page 13

International protest over N.Z. reaction to endangered species

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

How does New Zealand rate over the protection of primates (monkeys)? Not well, according to the International Primate Protection league. It has written to the Minister of Overseas Trade (Mr Taiboys) about New Zealand’s failure to accede to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of 1973.

A recent incident at the port of Nelson, in all innocence and with all good will, may anger the League further.

On June 12, the Taiwanese vessel Everfaith left Indonesia and on June 22 it berthed at Nelson. Mr John Muir, a Nelson veterinarian, boarded the ship and asked the master if there were any animals on board. The master said there were not and the ship was cleared by the port agricultural office. The next day, officers of the Customs Department in Nelson, suspicious of some aspects of the ship, mounted a major drugs search. They found below a small male monkey, tied up with a piece of string. The master denied knowing of its existence and the crew all denied ownership. It was destroyed as soon as possible. Mr Muir said afterwards that Nelson had no quarantine facilities in which to put it; no-one on board the ship accepted ownership so that it could be placed in bond; and noone would accept authority for it when the ship was due to sail. It may be that the crew had it as a pet, or that someone intended to slip it ashore and sell it. The disease of rabies, invariably fatal to humans who contract it, is endemic in Indonesia. It has an incubation period of up to six months. New Zealand is one of the few countries free of it. Rabies is a

disease of wild animals and all domestic animals and humans are at risk from it. The existence of rabies here would be devastating. Six people are known to have died from it in Europe last year. No-one there can risk being scratched or bitten by a wild animal. Anyone who is must be treated immediately and inoculation is an automatic precaution. “I could not afford to take any risk with the monkey.” Mr Muir says. “I had to deal with a small male monkey that might have been carrying rabies.

There was nowhere I could transfer it; there was no responsible person who would take it away from New Zealand. So 1 had it destroyed.” As far as the port agriculture service of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries can tell, this is the first primate destroyed on entering New Zealand for the last 10 years. Primates being imported are on a zoo-to-zoo basis and have passed through safe quarantine. The timing of this incident could not have been more unfortunate. On December 23, last year, the

International Primate Protection League wrote to Mr Taiboys asking why New Zealand had not acceded to the convention. Mr Taiboys replied, on April 29, that the Government was considering it. There is a conflict between Article VIII (para-

graph 4) of the convention and New Zealand law.

Article VIII requires national authorities which confiscate illegally traded specimens of endangered species to return them alive to the State of export or to an institution which cares for live animals.. The practice in New Zealand, for the sound reason of preventing the entry and spread of diseases which might harm animals or humans, is to destroy illegally imported specimens as soon as they are discovered. Mr Taiboys said it was not possible to accede to the convention with reservations. He recommended that New Zealand’s practice, while contrary to the convention, should be sanctioned by it on the grounds that it was stricter than the convention required.

“We shall soon take the first steps in what could be a lengthy process of securing such agreement,” Mr Taiboys wrote. “If no State objects to our proposal, New Zealand should be able to accede to the convention later this year.” This reply outraged the League. Its co-chairperson, Dr Shirley McGreal, wrote back: “There are now about 200 mountain gorillas left in the world. If one arrived illegally in New Zealand, do you se-

riouslv suggest it should be killed? “There are now about 500 golden lion marmosets in the world. Should one arrive illegally, do you seriously think it should be killed? There are now about 600 lion-tailed macaques living in the West-

ern Ghats of India. Should one be shipped illegally to New Zealand, would you really want to see it killed? “The idea presupposes a bizarre concept of culpability — that an innocent animal should be ‘punished’ with the death penalty because it has had the ill-fortune to be caught and shipped by poachers. Execute the smugglers, don’t you agree?” The animals could be returned to their habitat country, or they could be placed in a zoo after suitable quarantine. The League hoped that New Zealand would no longer avoid its international responsibilities to endangered wildlife by failing to join the convention, along with countries such as Uganda.

“Even if it means that New Zealand stays outside the convention, I hope that the present member states will in no way sanction the .murder of animals belonging to endangered species,” she said. “This is an unnecessarily melodramatic action. Many United States and European zoos hold confiscated specimens of endangered wildlife. Only zoos in New Zealand can receive imported primates, and then only from zoos overseas.