Remove traps, rescue birds

Despite many sanctions and deterrents, some restaurants still sell dishes made from wild animals. Among the most popular wild animals “entering restaurants” are birds, including some rare birds. When the “demand” still exists, the “supply” must meet it, which is almost inevitable. This is the reason why the hunting of wild animals and wild animals continues and is difficult to completely prevent.

Recently, forest rangers and authorities have conducted surprise inspections at a number of restaurants and discovered acts of storing wild animals for food preparation. At the same time, they have discovered and chased away many cases of people hunting wild animals in the forest, removed many wild animal traps, and rescued and released many wild animals back into the wild.

Through patrolling and controlling activities, the rangers combine propaganda to raise awareness that people should not hunt and consume wild animals. This is a violation of the law and will be subject to fines and, depending on the nature and severity of the violation, criminal liability may be prosecuted.

Along with hunting and processing activities of wildlife products, the province has long seen the advertising of wildlife trading and trading on social networking sites. Although this violation has been publicized in many forms, it still recurs.

Mr. Le Ngoc Tuan, Head of the Provincial Forest Protection Department, informed that recently, illegal hunting, transporting, raising, slaughtering, processing and advertising of wild animals are still happening, and even tend to increase. The locations of these activities are concentrated in residential areas, markets, restaurants, eateries... Notably, the act of advertising, trading birds, and advertising dishes made from birds is increasing significantly.

According to Decree No. 38/2021/ND-CP dated March 29, 2021 of the Government regulating administrative sanctions in the fields of culture and advertising and Decree No. 35/2019/ND-CP dated April 25, 2019 of the Government regulating administrative sanctions in the field of forestry, violations such as advertising wild animals can be fined up to 100 million VND.

In addition to administrative sanctions, when reviewing the case, if the violation is found to have signs of a crime, the competent person will transfer the file to the competent authority to conduct criminal proceedings according to the provisions of Article 62 of the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations 2012 (amended and supplemented in 2020).

In order to protect wildlife in general and wild birds in particular, the Prime Minister issued Directive No. 29/CT-TTg dated July 23, 2020 on a number of urgent solutions for wildlife management; Directive No. 04/CT-TTg dated May 17, 2022 on a number of urgent tasks and solutions to conserve migratory wild birds in Vietnam. Locally, on January 9, 2020, the Chairman of the People's Committee of Thua Thien Hue province issued Directive No. 01/CT-UBND on strengthening the management and protection of wild birds. These directives have ensured a legal corridor for functional forces in performing public duties and handling violations.

Since the directive was issued, authorities at all levels and functional sectors in the province have actively promoted and mobilized the entire population to participate in the protection of wildlife in general and wild birds in particular, which has brought about some very positive results. Violations have decreased significantly, and people's awareness has been raised. However, violations of hunting, trading and processing of wildlife are still recurring. From now until the end of 2024 and in the coming time, the forest rangers will coordinate with functional agencies and local authorities to continue to focus on strictly and thoroughly handling violations of hunting and consuming wildlife.

Article and photos: The Hung