Two Belgian teenagers were charged Tuesday from the hacking of fauna after being found thousands of ants wrapped in test tubes in what the Kenyan authorities declared to be part of a trend in the traffic of smaller species and less known. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19 -year -olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants in a guest house, appeared to be distraught during their appearance in front of a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by parents. They told the magistrate that they collected the ants to have fun and did not know it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, the Kenyan Dennis Ng’Ang’a and the National Duh Vietnamese Hung Nguyen were also accused of illegal traffic in the same courtroom, after their arrest while in possession of 400 ants.
Kenya Wildlife Service said in a press release that the four men were involved in the trafficking in the markets in Europe and Asia, and that the species included Messor Cephalotes, a distinctive red harvesting ant, originating in East Africa. The illegal export of ants “Mine not only the sovereign rights of Kenya on its biodiversity, but also deprives local communities and research institutions of potential ecological and economic advantages,” said KWS. Kenya has fought in the past against trafficking in body parts of larger species of wild animals such as elephants, rhinos and pangolins. But affairs against the four men represent “a change in traffic tendencies – from large emblematic mammals to less known but ecologically critical species,” KWS said.
The two Belgians were arrested in the county of Nakuru in Kenya, which houses various national parks. The 5,000 ants were found in a guest house where they stayed, wrapped in 2,244 test tubes filled with cotton to allow ants to survive for months. The other two men were arrested in Nairobi, where they had 400 ants in their apartments. Kenyan authorities have evaluated the ants at around $ 7,700. The prices of ants may vary considerably, depending on the species and the market. Philip Muruthi, vice-president of the African Wildlife Foundation of Nairobi, warned the risk of species traffic and disease export to the agricultural industry from countries of destination. “(Trade) should be regulated and no one should take our resources like that,” he said.
(More stories of animal trafficking.)
