Smuggling animals away from the island can result in a 1- to 3-year prison sentence.
Galapagos Islands airport staff found 185 ground turtles in a suitcase on their way to the mainland side of Ecuador, authorities said on Sunday.
The Ecuadorian Ministry of the Environment said On Twitterthat the animals were found during a routine inspection. According to the ministry, the prosecutor’s office and the police environmental protection unit (UPMA) are investigating the case.
Minister of the Environment Marcelo Mata resented in his own in his tweet “Crimes against wildlife and the natural heritage of Ecuadorians”.
Smuggling animals away from the island can result in a 1- to 3-year prison sentence.
About their giant tortoises the well-known islands belonging to Ecuador are World Heritage Sites of the United Nations Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
World-famous giant tortoises arrived on the islands three to four million years ago. They are believed to have come to the island with sea currents. Since then, the turtles have evolved into 15 distinct species, three of which have become extinct.
The awareness of the Galapagos Islands was boosted by a British naturalist who studied the origin of the species Charles Darwin. Darwin, who lived in the 19th century, himself visited the islands, where he made some of his observations.
The islands are located about a thousand kilometers west of the coast of Ecuador. Only about 30,000 people live permanently in the Galapagos Islands.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/nature-protection-attempts-were-made-to-smuggle-185-ground-turtles-from-the-galapagos-islands-in-a-suitcase/
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