Opinion The fate of the animals By Tony Laszlo	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
動物たちの運命 日本はワシントン条約の加盟国であるにもかかわらず 絶滅の危機にひんした動植物の密輸入が後を絶たない。 日本にはもっと厳しい取り締まりが必要だし、 押収された動植物を保護するために しっかりした施設を作らなければならない。

Every year, hundreds of endangered animals are confiscated by Japanese customs officials as people try to illegally import them into Japan. In 1999, officials confiscated 560 animals, among them more than 400 tortoises.

The previous year, someone tried to bring in five rare Fennec foxes, which are not only endangered but could also spread rabies to dogs if not properly vaccinated. And the year before that, officials spotted a person with a boa constrictor hidden in his luggage!

The Japanese officials almost always let the would-be importers go with only a warning, on the condition that they voluntarily relinquish ownership of the animal. In other words, the illegal importation of endangered animals is treated as a crime, while attempted importation is not.

Today, about 1,400 of these animals are being kept at zoos and aquariums around the country. Unfortunately, these facilities are usually not adequately prepared to take care of exotic animals, being short of expertise, manpower and funding. Nor does keeping the confiscated endangered animals in Japan help to bolster their numbers and prevent them from moving further toward extinction.

Why not ship the animals back to their home countries? As a signatory of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), it may be argued that the Japanese government is obliged to do just that.

However, in case after case, the government has chosen to let other parties be responsible for the fate of the animals. In 1999, for example, the government persuaded Kobe's Oji Zoo to take in four orangutans and two other rare primates it had confiscated, until the apes were strong enough to make the trip back to their home country of Indonesia. The government then transferred the legal ownership of the animals to the government of Indonesia.

As a consequence of this maneuver, the Indonesian government ended up exporting the apes back home to itself. In this way, the Japanese government limited its involvement to the bare minimum: the issuance of a re-export permit. This tactic enraged environmentalists, who say that in such a case Japan is obliged by treaty to see to it personally that an animal is returned safely to its natural habitat, and rehabilitated properly so that it can survive in the wild.

Japan is one of the world's leading consumers of wildlife. In 1996, it imported 54 percent of the total global trade in tortoises, 42 percent of that for birds and 21 percent of all apes traded. While some of these animals are coming into Japan legally, there can be little doubt that the Japanese consumers' desire for exotic animals is encouraging smugglers.

The Japanese government must crack down on smugglers more forcefully, so that fewer people will be tempted to take endangered animals out of their own environments and ship them to Japan. At the same time, Japan needs a well-funded animal shelter, which would specialize in the care and rehabilitation of exotic animals that the government confiscates each year.

Of course, these steps alone will not serve to protect endangered animals from extinction. People all around the globe must wake up to this problem, before more irreversible damage is done to the earth's biodiversity and to the global environment, in general.

Shukan ST: April 6, 2001

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