POaking bust is an familiar area for Kenya officers Wildlife Service (KWS), an armed force charged with protecting the iconic creatures in the country. But what awaits the guards when they descended in early April on a hospitality house in the west of the country, was the largest and smaller in size than the smuggling operations they usually face. There were more than 5,000 smuggled animals, loved in their containers. Each one, however, was the size of a little nail: 18-25mm.
The shipment, which was supposed to aim at two Belgian teenagers to ship to the strange pets in Europe and Asia. Its containers were a mixture of test tubes and injectors that contain cotton wool – the environments that the authorities say will keep insects alive for weeks.
“We did not come here to break any laws,” Lorenoy David, one of the Belgian smugglers, says.
David and Cby Lodujx, both of whom were 19, admitted that he was guilty after being accused last week of wildlife pirates, along with two other men in a separate case who was arrested from 400 ants. The new cases have shed light on the prosperous global antique trade – and what the authorities say is an increasing trend in trafficking in “less clear” creatures.
These crimes represent “a transformation in trafficking trends-from large iconic mammals to the less well-known and more critical species,” says KWS.
The extraordinary situation has also trained the highlight of the specialized world of the specialist It flourished over the past decade. Includes seized species Messor CephalotesA domain of the original red harvest in East Africa. The queens of species grows to about 20-24 mm, and the anti-sales site Ants r for us He describes them as “the types of dreams of many people”, and sell them for 99 pounds sterling for each colony. KWS says the ants are valuable by their university for their unique behaviors and complex colonial building skills, “the features that make them popular in strange pets, where they are kept in specialized habitats known as Formicariums.”
One of the ants online, who asked not to be named, says that the market flourishes, and there was growth in ANT preserving offers, as the enthusiasts gather to compare the details of housing and types. “The sales volumes have grown almost every year. There are more ants sellers than before, and prices have become more competitive,” he says. He says: “In today’s world, where most people live a fast -paced life, which depends on technology, a lot is separated from themselves and their environment. Watching ants in the form of formium can be amazingly therapeutic.”
David and Lodewijck will remain in detention until the court will consider a prenatal report on April 23. Anti -seller says that “a prominent issue in this field.” “People who travel to other countries specifically to collect ants and then returning with them have not already heard of it,” he says.
Scientists have sparked fears that flourishing trade in strange ants could pose a great danger to biological diversity. “Ants are traded as pets around the world, but if they are presented outside their original domains, it may become invasive with harsh environmental and economic consequences.” Researchers are saved. In paper 2023 Follow the ants trading throughout China. “Most desirable ants have higher gas capabilities,” they write.
Removing ants from their environmental systems can also be harmful. KWS says that illegal export “not only undermines Kenya’s sovereign rights to biological diversity, but also deprives local communities and research institutions with possible environmental and economic benefits.” Dino Martins, an insect scientist and evolutionary biologist in Kenya, says that the harvest is among the most important insects in African savanna, and any trade in it must have negative consequences for the herbal land environment.
“Ants of harvest are seeds college, and they gather [the seeds] As food for themselves, and store them in their nests. The large ants colony can collect several kilograms of seeds of various herbs per year. “In the process of collecting grass seeds, the ants” drop “a number … separates it through herbal lands,” Martins says.
Insects also act as food for various other types, including Aardvarks, Pangoline and Aardwolves.
Martins says he was surprised by a vision that smugglers who feed the global “pet” trade are training in their eyes on KenyaBecause “ants are among the most common insects and insects.”
“In fact, insects can be traded more sustainable, through the censorship of insect control. This can support livelihoods in rural societies such as the Kipepeo project that retracts butterflies in Kenya,” he says. At the local level, the main threats of ants do not come from illegal trade, but poisoning of pesticides and the destruction of gases and gaseous species, says Martins.
Philip Marwati, Vice President of the Conservation of the African Wildlife Foundation in Nairobi, says ants enrich the soil, enable germination and providing food for other types.
“When you see a healthy forest … do not think about what makes it healthy. They are relationships along the way from bacteria to ants to the biggest things.”
