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French customs officers recently revealed that they had discovered, at Roissy airport, 718 skulls of protected animals, including 392 primate skulls from Africa. Exotic animals living in zoos are also highly coveted and thefts are increasing.
Polar bears, parrots, tigers, rare species, targets of thieves. In an animal park in Val-de-Marne, the guards are on alert, they have just installed barbed wire to prevent thieves. Last year, two men stole two parrots in the middle of the night from a building where they were being cared for. “They managed to get over the railing, where at the time there was no sharp barbed wire yet. They took two small transport boxes”says Éric Vignot, president of the Parrot World animal park, in Crécy-la-Chapelle (Val-de-Marne).
Resold on social networks
The criminals, aged around twenty, were caught two days later. They said they were passionate about exotic animals. One of the parrots died, the other returned to its aviary. It is often on the Internet that this traffic thrives. Last June, at the Lille zoo (North), four protected Greek tortoises and a rare kingfisher were stolen. The animals were then offered for sale on social networks.