Online trading of protected animals is still rampant in Central Java, an officer at the Central Java Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) reported on Friday.

Head of the agency'€™s Region I section, Johan Setiawan, said that in 2013 alone the agency had made seven arrests for illegal trading of protected animals and seized over 15 protected wild animals including orangutans, Jalak Bali birds, hookbill birds and slow loris, locally known as kukang.

On Thursday, for example, the agency together with the Center for Orangutan Protection (COP) caught red handed a trader who was selling rare eagles and kukang at Ambarawa bird market, Central Java.

Johan said that the arrest was conducted based on the monitoring of an online site selling wild animals. The suspect, identified as Paryono, had reportedly been selling endangered animals at the market for about six years.

Along with the arrest, the joint team confiscated two Bido eagles (Spilornis cheela) and six loris (Nycticebus javanicus). They were usually offered for between Rp 600,000 (US$61) and Rp 1 million each.

Paryono was considered to have violated Law No 5/1990 on conservation of bio resources and their ecosystem, which carries a maximum penalty of five years and a maximum fine of Rp 100 million.

Johan said that traders of wild animals operated in networks and that raids could help slow down their activities. '€œOnce we stop the raids, they become active again,'€ Johan said.

He partly blamed the rise of wild animal trading on the fact that many people still like to nurture and collect wild animals. Some even see that doing so gives them prestige. This in turn leads to higher demand for wild animals.

'€œSuppliers will do anything to provide the animals in demand by intently hunting for them in their natural habitat,'€ he said.

COP'€™s conservation program coordinator Daniek Hendarto said that traders knew that what they were trading was illegal. Bird lovers, similarly, also acknowledged if particular animals were protected or not.

'€œIn many cases, they pretended that they did know that the animals were protected just to escape from the law,'€ Daniek said.

He added that investigations conducted by COP in bird markets revealed that the traders normally only displayed ordinary animals while the protected ones were hidden in warehouses located behind the markets.

The trading, according to Daniek, was conducted in two ways: conventional and modern. The conventional way is through directly selling wild animals in the bird markets, while the modern way is conducted through online media such as special groups selling animals on Facebook.

The online trade, according to Daniek, was relatively new. The process started with the traders and buyers interacting through Facebook. After they agree on a price the buyers will transfer the money to the sellers'€™ bank accounts. The animals will be sent through expedition trading services.

Daniek also said that illegal trading of protected wild animals would be difficult to eradicate when it came to law enforcement.

'€œThe police and the Forestry Ministry have to be serious in fighting against protected animal trading networks. Don'€™t just nab the small trader but catch the mafia operated bigger networks,'€ he said.

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