Animals are seized at a raid at the Wildlife Friends Foundation of Thailand (credit: wfft)
Officials from Thailand’s National Park, Wildlife and Plants Conservation Division have raided a wildlife sanctuary and seized rescued animals. The raid is part of an ongoing series of actions that seems to be targeting NGO’s – especially those who are campaigning against poaching and corruption.
One of the main targets for this action is Wildlife Friends Foundation of Thailand who are having their animals seized by park officials after a raid on the founders home on Monday.
Raids on NGO’s campaigning against poaching.
Between 60 and 70 armed officials raided Edwin Wiek, founder and secretary-general of the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT), on Monday at 11.00 am amid claims that the wildlife sanctuary had illegal possession of 20 elephants. The WFFT have 6 legal elephants in their possession which are looked after by 3 handlers.
WFFT failed to produce animal documents within time.
Officials then demanded that documents for the 450 animals at the park should be produced within 3 hours. When the WFFT were unable to meet the deadline Jansaeng Sangnanork, Wiek’s wife and a director or the foundation, was arrested and held in cells until 3.00am on Tuesday.
Later on Tuesday (14th February) the parks division started to remove the animals from the sanctuary.
Claims of raids being in response to corruption allegations.
Supporters of the foundation claim that the raids are in response to Mr Weik’s and the WFFT’s on-going campaign to highlight poaching and corruption in the parks division. His latest campaign was claiming there was an official cover up, negligence and bribery in the case of the poaching of 6 elephants in national parks.
An official from the park division said that WWFT are known to have illegal wildlife at their sanctuary. The sanctuary often gets wildlife handed in to be taken care of but as many of the animals are not licensed they are illegal and should not be kept. The department began action against the WFFT and an elephant sanctuary after receiving a phone call to say the animals were being kept in ‘torturous conditions’.
All the animals currently being seized are being removed to government establishments to be taken care of while the case progresses.
Follow ongoing situation on social media.
The ongoing situation can be followed either through twitter with hashtag #wfft or the WFFT facebook page.
External sites:
Wildlife Friends Foundation of Thailand.
Wildlife Friends Foundation of Thailand Facebook.
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