In Peru, a Wild Bounty for Poachers

Many customers walk right past the toilet paper and soft drinks at Edgar Palpan’s grocery store, straight through to the crocodiles and tree sloths.

Birds, piranhas, a collection of snakes and other exotic reptiles fill the first floor of the store, also Palpan’s home in the poor Lima barrio of Los Olivos.

“I’ve even gotten a jaguar for one man. They are in demand because they’re cute when they’re small,” he says.

Trafficking in wild animals is illegal in Peru, but when a sloth alone will bring in $400--more than three times the monthly minimum wage--many are willing to take the risk.

The 1973 law was intended to protect species that are fast disappearing from Peru’s jungles. The country’s varied geography--from jungle to desert--makes it prime hunting ground for exotic animals.

“Peru has an incredible amount of wild animals and plants that are not easily found elsewhere,” zoologist Diego Shoobridge said. “[Those] smuggled out of the country are always rare and always top quality.”

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Peru is home to 374 species of mammals, 1,710 species of birds, 298 reptile species and 324 species of amphibians, according to government figures.

The World Wildlife Foundation estimates global trade in illegal animal trafficking at more than $5 billion a year.

“I only get animals that people want,” Palpan said in an interview. “I don’t know what they do with them after I sell them. Everyone knows there is a mafia that gets the animals out” of the country.

Last weekend, police seized almost 1,000 animals--including anacondas, water snakes, crocodiles black and red-headed lizards and iguanas--at Lima’s Jorge Chavez airport.

Packed in plastic foam boxes marked “ornamental fish,” the animals were being shipped to Los Angeles on the Chilean airline Lan Chile. Police said about a third apparently had died from a drug used to sedate them.

Peru’s Ecological Police are investigating and coordinating efforts with Interpol to discover the ring’s international connections, said Col. Aurelio Herrera, chief of the force.

“Besides destroying our natural resources, these people overlook the fact that they are dealing with animals that should not be kept in captivity and are potentially dangerous,” Herrera said.

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Although the exact number of exotic animals captured and sold in Peru is not known, they can be easily purchased in downtown Lima. Until city authorities swept through Ayacucho Street last month, the animal market resembled a sidewalk zoo.

Marco, a young man from the Amazon jungle city of Iquitos, used to go there to hawk his baby anaconda, a boa that can grow to 25 feet in length. He would not provide his last name or say how he got the snake.

Last year, a few blocks from where Marco was selling his anaconda, the Ecological Police found a cache of nearly 100 dead animals, including 55 small monkeys that had been decapitated.

Police said the animals probably died en route from the jungle and had their heads taken by Peruvian shamans for use in potions.

“There’s no information to let people know that these animals are in danger of extinction, and that it is illegal to capture wild animals and buy or sell their skins,” said Shoobridge, the zoologist affiliated with Washington, D.C.-based Conservation International.

The main way smugglers get the animals--or just their skins--out of the country is over Peru’s long and sparsely populated borders with Bolivia and Brazil, Shoobridge said.

“It is difficult to get the animals out,” he said. “But it is easy for people to move skins, particularly from jaguars, vicunas and crocodiles, which are in demand worldwide.”