CHONBURI   –  As night falls, a team of wildlife officers and veterinarians springs into action. In a carefully rehearsed routine, they enter the lemur enclosure, nets in hand. One by one, the lemurs – whose big eyes, foxlike faces and long, bushy tails set them apart from their primate relatives – are captured, given quick health checks, and secured in travel crates. Nearby, tortoises are also being readied for transport in long, narrow cases lined with grass and straw. Each tortoise is labelled before being placed inside.

Later, at Suvarnabhumi Airport in the Thai capital, Bangkok, the officers – many of whom have cared for the animals since their rescue seven months ago – refill water dispensers and peer through the crates’ ventilation holes, checking on the animals one last time before departure. Bright amber lemur eyes stare back, wide with confusion. This routine is repeated three times over two weeks, preparing a total of 16 ring-tailed lemurs, 31 brown lemurs, 155 radiated tortoises, and 758 spider tortoises  – all ranging from vulnerable to critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List – for their long-haul flight back home to Madagascar. It marks the culmination of the largest-ever wildlife repatriation for both Thailand and Madagascar.

In fact, these animals began their journey months ago. In May, Thai authorities seized a cargo of 1,109 endangered lemurs and tortoises originating from Madagascar in one of the country’s largest wildlife trafficking busts to date. The raid was the result of an ongoing international investigation aimed at dismantling transnational criminal networks, involving the Royal Thai Police, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the Wildlife Justice Commission, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Interpol. Acting on a tip-off, Thai authorities tracked the convoluted route of an illegal wildlife shipment as it moved from Madagascar through Indonesia and Malaysia before entering Thailand. Thai police moved in as the smugglers passed through Chumphon province, successfully intercepting the shipment. Had they not been rescued, the animals would almost certainly have been sold into the multibillion-dollar global exotic pet market. “There are criminal networks capable of supplying any type of exotic pet, from reptiles and primates to birds and tortoises, to a black market with global demand,” said Giovanni Broussard, Africa coordinator of the environment team at UNODC. “There are buyers in every corner of the planet, and the modus operandi of the traffickers change continuously,” he said. Thailand has long been a hub for the wildlife trade – both legal and illegal. While the illegal trade in wildlife violates national or international laws, such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), the legal trade operates within the framework of law. A report in 2023 identified Thailand as Southeast Asia’s top importer of legally traded wildlife from Madagascar. Between 2001 and 2021, Thailand also recorded the highest number of illegal wildlife seizures from Madagascar, second only to Madagascar itself. The report warned that the extent of the illegal trade is likely to be greater than official seizure records suggest. “The seizures we make represent only a portion of trafficking activities,” said Apinya Chaitae, director of Cites implementation at Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation. It’s difficult to estimate the true scale of the problem, she says, but “as long as demand exists, smuggling will continue”.

Madagascar’s unique biodiversity – 90 percent of its species are found nowhere else on Earth – makes it a prime target for poachers and traffickers. (Al Jazeera)

Photo: Wildlife officers and veterinarians scan each lemur’s microchip and conduct quick health checks before moving them to their travel crates. (Al Jazeera)