Almost 100 exotic animals and birds, including cockatoos, echidnas and wallabies that had been smuggled into the Philippines in order to be sold to wealthy collectors were seized on Wednesday, wildlife officers said.
According to Agence France-Presse, the cache, hidden in small containers in a van, was made up of wildlife from Australia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, said Eric Gallego, spokesman for the local office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources said.
Two species listed as "critically endangered" by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature included yellow-crested cockatoos and long-beaked echidnas, AFP reported.
They also included four wallabies from Australia and about 90 exotic parrots from Indonesia, Gallego said.
Several of the birds or animals had died, possibly from the stress of long travel in harsh conditions, he told AFP.
Acting on a tip, law enforcers stopped two attendants in a van containing the wildlife in the southern city of Surigao on Mindanao Island on Saturday, just as the vehicle was about to board a ship heading north, AFP reported.
"The birds and animals are believed to have been shipped from Indonesia to Malaysia and then across the maritime border to the southern Philippines where they would be taken to Manila, said Gallego," according to AFP.
"There must have been an order from a rich person in Manila for the animals as collector's items. It must be someone who is into rare animals," he told AFP.
From Malaysia into the southern Philippines, a crime syndicate with members from different countries was known to be smuggling rare animals, Josefina de Leon, head of the government's wildlife division, said.
Two men caught with the van will be charged with illegally transporting wildlife, a crime punishable up to six months in jail and a 50,000-peso ($1,120) fine depending on the rarity of the animals involved, AFP reported.
