Kurenivka market in Kyiv is considered the main place for selling and purchasing wild and domestic animals. Now, however, potential customers can even buy exotic animals without ever leaving the house. All they have to do is find a supplier’s phone number on the Internet and order a home delivery of an animal. So, for a low price a wolf (600 hryvnias), an owl (150-200 hryvnias), or a crocodile (1,000 hryvnias) can come to live in your home.
As the saying goes, money is no object. But you will not receive any documents for your new friend except for a “vet card” (the animal’s health certificate, provided by a veterinarian). Of course, if you have an extra 400 or 500 hryvnias lying around, illegal suppliers will provide you with a license from the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
Ecologists are convinced that wildlife smuggling is flourishing in Ukraine. You can buy anything on the black market. A kangaroo costs 2,500 dollars, a bear — 3,500, a mongoose — 200, a python — 600, a squirrel — 100, and a hedgehog — only 15 dollars.
“Wildlife contraband has become much more active in Ukraine in the last decade,” says Volodymyr Boreiko, the head of the Kyiv-based Ecological-Cultural Center. “Because of our country’s prime geographical location, it has become an animal transportation zone from the Middle East to Russia and Ukraine. Ineffective border, customs, and law- enforcement control of this situation has led to a situation where it is very difficult to stop the influx of contraband animals. But we must immediately raise the alarm because these animals represent a danger to Ukrainians’ health. Exotic animals, like monkeys, parrots, turtles, etc., which have not passed veterinary control at customs, may spread viruses, like bird flu and AIDS.”
According to data collected by ecologists, the animals that are imported most often to Ukraine are crocodiles, parrots, and monkeys. Among the animals brought out of Ukraine are rare snakes, insects, lizards, birds of prey, and bison. Among rare plants, snowdrops (one of the first flowers to appear in springtime) and lilies are most often targeted, shipped abroad to decorate private homes. Despite a ban passed by the Kyiv City Council, photographers continue to work on city streets with animals that have been illegally acquired. According to the results of a raid carried out by the Ecological-Cultural Center, none of them had the necessary documentation for their animals.
Among the main reasons behind the increase in animal contraband experts name bribery of customs officials during transport and fabrication of documents. It appears that besides black contraband, Ukraine also has a so-called “gray” one. Lawyers explain that this term means black caviar is transported as red, or bears, listed among the Red Data Book species, are labeled “dogs.” The most terrible thing is the living conditions of animals during transport.
According to Halyna Prystynska, a lawyer at Ekopravo-Kyiv, alcohol or clophelin, a drug to reduce arterial pressure, are given to monkeys to make them sleep, and parrots are wrapped in newspapers. Sometimes poachers use cruel methods to transport animals, like wrapping sticky tape around them or sealing them in tin containers soldered shut. As a result of such torture, 60 percent of animals die.
Prystynska thinks that Ukrainian legislation must be changed in order to reduce the level of smuggling. All existing legal documents that are valid in our state today actually permit the illegal trade of animals. Proof of this, in her opinion, is the law on registration and the passportization of bison for selection, which allows foreign hunters to hunt rare European bison, animals that are listed in Ukraine’s Red Data Book. Therefore, it is illegal to hunt them and sell the animal’s skin, skull, or horns.
“The order of the State Community Forest Management, which establishes prices for bison trophies, is still on the books,” Prystynska says. “For instance, a foreign hunter sells the trophies I mentioned earlier, for 3,100-3,600 euros in order to receive a gold medal, the so-called SIZ (System of Individual Defense). Therefore, as long as such inadmissible laws exist, hundreds of innocent animals will perish. To stop this we have brought suit in Kyiv’s Administrative Court with a demand to abolish these laws.”
According to Interpol data, the world’s illegal trade in animals and plants has outstripped arms and drugs smuggling. The yearly illegal turnover from trafficking living creatures is nearly 200 million dollars. Every year Ukrainian customs detain one or two big lots of animals. This is only 10 percent of the animals that are illegally transported across the borders of Ukraine and other countries.
