AsiaLIFE

Since it was established by Wildlife Alliance in 2001, the Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team have saved over 43,000 animals from illegal traders. It is estimated that the efforts of the team has reduced illegal wildlife trade in Phnom Penh by 90 percent. Mark Bibby Jackson and photographer Conor Wall spent a day riding with the animal rescuers.

8.30am
Koy Visedh greets us at Wildlife Alliance’s headquarters on Phnom Penh’s Street 99. The project manager for the Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team (WRRT) has worked for the organisation since the end of 2004. Today, he will coordinate the raids on animal traders.

His team of seven military policemen and four forestry administration officers met last night at 9.30pm to decide the plan of action. They have been here since seven this morning.

Some undercover officers visited a trader’s house earlier this morning, pretending to want to buy some wildlife. As they discovered only a few soft shell crabs and a water snake, Visedh decided to keep the place under surveillance rather than raid it. However, the visit was not entirely fruitless.

“We’ve learned that the traders have many different suppliers,” he says. “So we will wait until there are as many animals as possible.”

9.15am
Visedh calls a meeting.

While he briefs his team, we are shown around the office.

Downstairs, a couple of Lesser Adjutant Storks are kept in a cage. Recently rescued from traders, they will be delivered to the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Sanctuary in Takeo Province.

Wildlife Alliance’s policy is to release the animals back into the wild in a safe environment whenever possible. However, these endangered birds will be taken to the rescue programme at Phnom Tamao.

10.00am
We set off in three vehicles towards Pursat Province, where Visedh has been informed of another trader’s house. The trip should take around three hours.

Along the way, Visedh receives a phone call. He looks disappointed. Undercover officers have entered the trader’s house to discover there is little being traded.

Worried that any bust would tip the trader off to the fact that he is being monitored, Visedh decides to delay the raid.

12.15pm
We stop for lunch in the village of Ponley while Visedh waits for further information. 

1.05pm
Visedh holds another briefing in a pagoda just across the road from the restaurant.

While nobody has been seen bringing anything into the house, one person was seen leaving the house on a bicycle with a bag containing some animals.

There is another house in Battambang which the team could raid, but Visedh opts to give the first house a try. If they find nothing of value there, we will carry on towards Battambang.

2.05pm
Our three vehicles pull up outside a house off a red dirt lane that looks as if it is still being constructed. The officers rush around to the back of the house where there is a large paddock next to the river.

They discover two bags. One has a 1.5 metre long Rat Snake in it, and the other has around ten smaller water snakes inside. Throughout the raid, one man lies in a hammock around the
back of the house while three women sit on the front step. This is no Martin Scorsese film.

The place is full of empty cages with beds of straw and empty sacks. We are too late. One of the team, Heng Kim Chhay, informs me that as the snakes are not endangered, they will be released to a “suitable environment”.

A woman is taken away. She will receive a fine that is three times the value of the snakes. Chhay estimates the snakes are worth around US$30, so the fine might be US$90.

If she had been found with some endangered animals, like the Lesser Adjutant Storks back in the office, she would have been taken away to jail.

As we are leaving, Visedh spots a car he remembers chasing before. The team searches the car and the house outside which it is parked but finds nothing. It’s just another dead end.

We have been unlucky to rescue so few animals. “This house regularly collects animals from traders,” Visedh says.

“We’ve been informed that they buy all kinds of animals—pangolins, porcupines and macaques.”

3.00pm
We take the woman trader to the police post in the commune of Svay Daunkeo. It’s only a few hundred metres from her house.

“They are getting more organised,” explains Heng Kim Chhay. “Now, they only hold on to the animals for a short period of time.”

The trader informs the police officers that she does not know who brought her the snakes. Some people dropped the bags off. Nobody has come back to take them, she claims.

Visedh rushes off to meet another informant, leaving his colleagues to pursue the arrest. WRRT has a network of hundreds of volunteer informants, who get a reward if their tip-off leads to a major bust. We decide to stay with our trader while she waits for someone to pay her fine.

3.45pm
Eventually, a man comes with some money. Heng Kim Chhay’s estimate was conservative. In total, 840,000 riel (US$210) is charged. The fine paid, the man disappears again.

We head back to Phnom Penh, leaving the woman sitting across from the police officers.

Much of the wildlife in Cambodia is still endangered, but at least Visedh and his team are doing their best to curb this destructive trade.

For more information on Wildlife Alliance, see www.wildlifealliance.org