S’pore flies back star tortoise cargo

In what is seen as a major victory for the Government’s efforts to stop international trafficking in endangered species of wildlife, the Singapore Government on Thursday sent back to the country a huge consignment of star tortoises reportedly smuggled out of Chennai airport recently. This is possibly the first time international cooperation between two countries has resulted in the return of native endangered species protected under the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES) to India.

The two consignments, 19 crates in all, arrived at Chennai airport by a Singapore Airlines flight at around 9.50 pm and were delivered to a group of wildlife and Union Ministry of Environment and Forests officials who had arrived from New Delhi for the purpose. After an overnight halt at the Arignar Anna Zoological Park in Vandalur, the tortoises will be flown to Hyderabad Zoo on Friday morning, officials said. Since the place of origin of the star tortoises is not known yet, efforts will be taken to rehabilitate them only after their antecedents are ascertained after DNA profiling at Hyderabad’s Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology.

Dr B.C. Chaudhuri from the Endangered Species Management Department, New Delhi, said the consignment consisted of about 1,830 animals, mostly hatchlings, weighing 490 kilograms. ‘‘They were smuggled out of Chennai in two consignments in the last weeks of June and July but we still do not know who booked it,’’ he said.