SUNDAY AGE (Melbourne, Australia) 04 May 08 'Wildlife warrior' no friend to our fauna (Mark Russell)
Matthew Borg educates children on the importance of protecting wildlife. He visits Victorian schools to show how to handle everything from possums to pythons. But what he fails to mention is that he is a wildlife smuggler.
Borg's double life was revealed when he was caught trying to smuggle a dozen exotic snakes from Melbourne to Sydney. The snakes ¡ª 10 juvenile corn snakes and two Burmese pythons ¡ª were intercepted at Melbourne Airport by Department of Sustainability and Environment officers who were suspicious about the contents of a large polystyrene box.
Borg, 29, of Tarneit, pleaded guilty last month in the Sunshine Magistrates Court to five charges under the Victorian Wildlife Act, including illegally selling exotic species, possessing protected wildlife and failing to keep accurate and up-to-date records of his wildlife collection. He was fined $15,000.
He admitted knowing that dealing in exotic snakes was illegal, and he could not explain why a stuffed Tasmanian devil found at his house had not been registered in his record book for protected wildlife ¡ª a condition of his DSE wildlife licence.
Burmese pythons and corn snakes (from America) are potential carriers of inclusion body disease and ophidian paramyxo virus, and could have a devastating impact on private reptile collections and native python populations if released into the wild. The 12 smuggled snakes had to be destroyed because of disease fears.
Borg's Melbourne-based company, Totally Native Educational Adventures, claims to take "an active role in protecting our native habitat and raising awareness". Borg charges schools $200 a session for children to interact with animals such as bearded dragons, shingleback lizards, turtles, snakes, fruit bats (flying foxes), frogs, crocodiles, kangaroos, wombats and red-tailed black cockatoos. He also organises parties for $250.
Asked by The Sunday Age why he tried to smuggle the snakes, Borg said: "You do not know the full story."
Customs' national manager of investigations, Richard Janeczko, said it was difficult to understand why people such as Borg would commit such a crime, but he was not an isolated example of an enthusiast dabbling in smuggling wildlife.
"It's one of the great contradictions we find in people involved in the smuggling of wildlife," Mr Janeczko said.
"You have these people (such as Borg) who sit somewhere between the real amateurs and the professional criminals.
"They say they are friends to the environment, but are in fact decimating populations of whatever it is they are collecting."
Wildlife smuggling is worth more than $10 billion a year internationally and often involves organised crime. The trade is said to be almost as lucrative to some gangs as drug trafficking and gun running.
Mr Janeczko describes it as a cruel trade because many animals die before they reach their overseas destination or have to be destroyed if found to have been smuggled into Australia.
Australian wildlife species, especially birds and reptiles, are favourites of overseas collectors because of their colours and unique characteristics.
Bird smugglers regularly visit the nesting sites of rare species in the breeding season to rob nests of eggs. Couriers act as incubators and have been found by customs to be carrying up to 50 eggs at a time in purpose-designed body vests.
Mr Janeczko said there had been a noticeable increase in the wildlife trade, with smugglers favouring the use of international mail to try to distance themselves from the crime.
He pointed to a number of cases in the past month that showed how active wildlife smugglers had become in Australia despite facing maximum penalties of 10 years' jail and a fine of $110,000 if caught.
The cases included:
¡ö A Dutch national deported after being jailed for smuggling birds' eggs into Australia. Antonius Duindam, 46, pleaded guilty in Sydney to illegally importing 10 West African parrot eggs.
¡ö A licensed Victorian reptile collector from Ferntree Gully arrested for smuggling four New Guinea pythons. The snakes, believed to be endangered green tree pythons from Papua New Guinea, were found at the Sydney International Mail Centre.
'Wildlife warrior' no friend to our fauna

[ Show Entire Thread ]