Dying Snakes Seized From Smuggler At Moscow Airport

by ANC Staff

Russian customs at the Moscow International Airport Sheremetyevo confiscated four snakes, two rat snakes and two cobras recently in an attempted smuggling operation.

One of the rat snakes was already dead and the cobras were discovered with their mouths sewn shut.

The stitches were quickly removed by a veterinary of the Moscow Zoo and the confiscated snakes are now recovering in the IFAW CITES shelter.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW - www.ifaw.org) pointed to this latest seizure as evidence of the growing underground trade in protected wildlife.

"This case is indicative of the really low-life criminals who are engaged in this trafficking," said Dr. Maria Vorontsova, Director of the IFAW Office in Russia.

"Illegal commerce in protected species is not only cruel to animals but represents a danger to other animals and people. This is a much larger problem than people realize," she said.

According to official documents of the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), hundreds of thousands of protected snakes are annually caught and subject to illegal international trade.

IFAW applauded the Russian authorities for the seizure and immediately called for an investigation concerning the origin of the consignment and its intended recipient.

All the snakes were found in an abandoned luggage in the customs zone of the Moscow International Airport Sheremetyevo. The smugglers and the recipients of the contraband are still unknown, but Russian Customs officers presume that the snakes came from Hanoi (Vietnam) and were destined for one of the Vietnamese restaurants in Moscow.

IFAW is caring for the three remaining snakes, one of the two rat snakes was found dead and decomposing, but the other is being rehabilitated.

The cobras "remain potentially dangerous despite their torn out poison fangs," said Sergey Ganusevich, Moscow CITES project manager.

"The wounded mouths make the snakes especially depressed and it will take a long time for them to be healed. The snakes still can’t eat on their own and thus be fed properly, but we will continue to do the best we can," he said.

© 2003 Animal News Center, Inc.