Animal traffickers arrested: good news… bad reporting.

Perhaps we should chalk up as another casualty of the “War on [some] drug [exporters for the benefit of the United States (and Felipe Calderón’s dubious electoral legitimacy)]” the lack of attention (and press) given to the un-going fight against smugglers who are not sending a renewable resource northwards, but are pillaging the planet, to all our loss.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Hundreds of police raided illicit markets to crack down on the lucrative trade in wild animals and rare flowers, arresting 15 traffickers across Mexico this weekend in one of the biggest swoops of its kind.

Rich in flora and fauna, Mexico is a major hub for animal trafficking where locals buy lizards, macaws and tropical fish in city markets and smugglers move endangered species across the country’s border with the United States.

In three days of raids, authorities netted 4,725 wild plants and animals — 113 different species — including 762 parrots and other types of birds and 67 reptiles.

The operation also found more than a dozen threatened mammals like wild boars, white-tailed deer and three tiny puma cubs in a cardboard box in a warehouse in southern Mexico.

“This is the first operation like this on a national scale,” Environment Minister Juan Elvira said on Monday. “We recovered 3,500 trafficked orchids, that’s a record.”

Animals and plants sold on the black market cost just a fraction of the price of legal breeds, and more than 90 percent of them sold unlawfully die in transit, authorities said.

Although I give credit to Reuters for at least acknowledging that Latin American (and Mexican) law enforcement has more to do than chase the people who supply gringos with the agricultural products they crave, I have to shake my head when the editor Tom Eastham feels compelled to add:

Mexican drug lords have been known to collect animals like big cats as trophy pets or hide narcotics in wildlife cargo.

In June, a Mexican was caught in the capital’s airport after arriving from Peru with 18 tiny endangered monkeys stuffed in socks and strapped in a girdle around his waist.

“Drug lords” are, presumably, criminals, and trafficking in endangered species is a crime. 

Smuggler, drug lord or crime victim?

I’m not sure why it needs to be reported that criminals in one line of mayhem also commit other types of crimes… this is as absurd as writing about domestic violence and writing “drug lords are known to sometimes beat their wives.”  Anyway, one “drug lord” more or less is no loss to the planet (nor, really, to the narcotics trade).  They’re easily replaced, but orchids, parrots and pumas … not so easily.

And what do Peruvian monkeys (in or out of a girdle) have to do with drug lords?  Were the monkeys carrying cocaine?