Sri Lanka confirmed China’s request for importing 1,00,000 endangered toque macaque monkeys
Colombo:
Sri Lanka has confirmed China’s request for importing 1,00,000 endangered monkeys from the cash-strapped island nation, amidst protests from environmental teams in opposition to the deal.
Gunadasa Samarasinghe, the highest bureaucrat in Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Agriculture stated {that a} privately-owned Chinese language firm linked to Zoological Gardens that are animal breeders had made the request to his ministry.
“We won’t ship the entire 100,000 in a single lot. However we thought of the request attributable to crop damages brought on by the monkeys in a number of elements of the nation. They won’t be taken from conserved areas. The main target shall be solely within the cultivation areas”, Mr Samarasinghe advised reporters.
The toque macaque monkey is endemic to Sri Lanka and categorised as endangered on the Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) crimson record.
Final week, Sri Lanka’s agriculture minister Mahinda Amaraweera stated that China’s request for 1,00,000 monkeys to be exhibited at over 1,000 Chinese language zoos might be thought of.
“They need these monkeys for his or her zoos,” the minister was quoted as saying. Sri Lanka bans virtually all stay animal exports however the proposed sale comes at a time when the nation is going through its worst-ever financial disaster.
Money-strapped Sri Lanka has eliminated a number of species from its protected record this yr, together with all three of its monkey species in addition to peacocks and wild boars, permitting farmers to kill them.
The toque macaque is understood to destroy crops in a number of elements of Sri Lanka, and even typically assaults individuals.
Authorities in Sri Lanka have pegged the monkey inhabitants within the nation between two to a few million.
In the meantime, China’s embassy in Colombo stated that it’s unaware of Sri Lanka exporting “100 thousand” of “endangered” toque macaque monkeys to a Chinese language personal firm for “experimental functions”.
The mission’s assertion stated the Chinese language Nationwide Forestry and Grassland Administration, the regulator dealing with the import and export of untamed animals and crops had not obtained any such requests to permit the monkey imports from Sri Lanka.
Citing China as one of many high international locations on this planet when it comes to wildlife safety laws and legislation enforcement, the embassy stated that the nation has already adopted its Wildlife Safety Regulation in 1988 with a number of amendments afterwards and is a contracting get together of the Conference on Worldwide Commerce in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
“The Chinese language authorities at all times attaches nice significance to wildlife safety and actively fulfills worldwide obligations,” the embassy right here stated in an announcement on Tuesday.
(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
