Monkey Business

For Vladimir Yemelyanov, a senior customs officer at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, it was a typical day on the job. A flight from Latin America had just arrived, and one of the last passengers was about to clear customs.


But just as the passenger bent over to collect a small box that had passed through the x-ray machine, the box began to scream. The officer on duty, who was about to let the passenger go, decided to open it.


"We were shocked to find as many as 30 monkeys in a small box. It is difficult to imagine how the passenger managed to ram them all into such a small place," Yemelyanov recalls. "The poor animals had suffered so much during the journey that you could see tears in their eyes."


And then there was the time that a passenger carrying a knapsack was walking by the customs desk when something inside his bag began to move, arousing the suspicion of airport officials. When they went to open it they found 30 parrots inside. The carrier had injected them with a special tranquilizer to make them sleep, but he did not count on them waking up before his arrival. According to Alexander Sevastyanov, head of the customs veterinary service that cares for the animals that are found and confiscated, officials at Moscow's international airport are growing accustomed to such incidents.


"About 10 times a month we catch passengers arriving from exotic countries trying to smuggle in animals illegally," Sevastyanov says. "They don't care about the transport conditions [for the animal]. Their goal is to pass through customs any way they can, so they drug the animals and stuff them into cases or knapsacks - sometimes with no air inside. Many of the animals die during the flight."


Indeed, Nikolai Semenenko, former head of the Sheremetyevo customs department, remembers one case when a passenger arriving from Asia was stopped when he appeared to behave suspiciously. "The customs officials asked him to open his hand luggage, and when he did they were surprised," Semenenko says. "They found a whole zoo. Inside this small bag were eight monkeys, two parrots and as many as 30 lizards. Unfortunately, half of the animals were already dead. They probably suffocated while in transport."


Sometimes people with live cargo get jittery and abandon their bags before passing through customs. Sevastyanov says one officer found an unclaimed box in the airport's arrivals area. "They thought it was a bomb but, thank God, when the box was opened they only found monkeys inside," Sevastyanov says.


According to the State Customs Committee, last year 268 animals imported illegally - among them Australian cockatoos, boas, caiman crocodiles, tamarind monkeys and a variety of lizards - were found and confiscated by Russian border guards.


However, this figure represents just the tip of the iceberg of Russia's underground market for exotic and endangered animals.


The illegal import of exotic animals is not exclusively a Russian phenomenon, but Moscow is an attractive destination since smugglers go virtually unpunished. Igor Chestin, director of the World Wide Fund for Nature's Russian program, says annual global sales are estimated to be in the low billions. In Moscow alone, sales amount to a million dollars a year, he estimates.


The Rise of the Pet Market


The illegal import and sale of exotic animals in Russia began during the Soviet era, but the problem has escalated in recent years. Not only do more Russians have the opportunity to travel abroad and bring back these animals, but a wealthy class eager to spend their money has discovered exotic pets to be the latest status symbol.


"Russia is now experiencing a real boom in the import and sale of exoty," says Roman Pukalov of Greenpeace, using the slang term to refer to the unusual animals. "It started several years ago when a new class of people called new Russians appeared. They can afford to buy whatever they want. For many, keeping a monkey or a jaguar in their villas outside the city is a symbol of prestige. People with money want to have something special in their homes. Monkeys, pythons and jaguars are especially popular."


"Importing exoty has become more profitable with every year. Now, they are the most lucrative illegal contraband after drugs and weapons," says Pukalov. "Many of the animals brought in are endangered, but they [the buyers and sellers] don't care. They don't want to understand how damaging this can be."


Animal rights activists estimate that the majority of smugglers pass through with their cargo unsuspected. And as long as the punishment for illegally importing animals is minimal - the passenger is fined the equivalent of less than ten times the official minimal salary, which is 87 rubles (about $3.50), and his cargo confiscated - smuggling exotic animals into Russia remains a low risk and lucrative business, particularly in Moscow.


Russian officials have no way of estimating how many animals are shipped in illegally every year. Unless the animals wake up and make a disturbance while they are passing through customs, there is little chance of seizing them, officials say. Airport screening equipment may check for metal and electronic equipment, but detecting the presence of a living being is not a sure thing.


"Sometimes an x-ray does give results," Yemelyanov says. "We recently detected a pink cockatoo that had been crammed into a drawing tube. The officer put the tube through the x-ray machine and could clearly see the shape of a parrot. Unfortunately, it was too late. The bird was already a corpse."


BOUND FOR MARKET


According to Chestin, 90 percent of the animals that do survive and pass through customs undetected are then traded in Moscow. The place to go if you are in the market for an exot is Ptichy Rynok, the weekend animal bazaar in the center of Moscow.


A visit to the Ptichy Rynok at 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning reveals just how far the exotic animal trade has developed.


"You can find whatever you want here," says one trader as he unpacks his cages of nutrias, or water rats. "If you want to find a rhinoceros you will, but you should decide what kind you need - a black or a white one," he jokes.


"Ptichy is known throughout Russia," says Alexander Dmitriyevich, a market vendor who only gave his name and patronymic. "People from the entire country come here to buy animals. And they know that if they don't find the animal right away, they will make the contacts to buy what they want."


The lemur and the loris - some categories of which are endangered - are among the most sought after exotic animals at the market, according to Yelena, 31, who started trading lemurs in the early 1990s after her husband brought a few back from Vietnam. Before then she worked as an engineer with a meager salary that she rarely received. Now, with lemurs selling for as much as $500, Yelena is making a comfortable living.


"There is a real demand for lemurs," she says, gesturing to one of her furry wares. "Look at them. They are so charming. Big eyes and an unusually sorrowful expression. They take food with their fingers just like we do." Their human-like qualities - and the fact that they are not very difficult to keep at home - make them very attractive pets, Yelena says. Some customers buy them as birthday presents for their children.


Vladimir, another lemur salesman, extolls the virtues of importing the animals, which cost only about $10 a piece in their native Vietnam. "They are so s mall," says Vladimir, who carries his cargo across the border. "You can put several of them in an inside pocket and nobody will see them."


However, there is no guarantee that they will survive the flight. Another lemur salesman says a friend of his managed to carry three of the animals past customs undetected, but when he went to check on them in the airport restroom he found that they had all suffocated. Instead of taking them to market, he flushed the three corpses down the toilet.


Due to the demand for these exotic animals abroad and the widespread practice of illegal export, many types of Vietnamese lemurs and loris have made their way onto the endangered list in recent years. The red loris, for example, which can be found at the Ptichy Rynok, is included in the international Red Book of endangered species.


Also listed in the Red Book is the caiman crocodile, which inhabits the waters of the Amazon. Although they are an endangered species, caimans are a common and not particularly expensive item at the market, selling for around $120. Vendors say the price is relatively low because the reptiles are easier to transport than mammals, which tend to suffocate in flight. Last year, for example, customs officials at Sheremetyevo Airport stopped a passenger arriving from Lima who was carrying a small case with 30 young caimans - each about 12 centimeters long. Although they were in transit for more than 20 hours, all of them survived the flight from Peru.


By far the largest section of exotic animals at Ptichy Rynok is devoted to birds. "Parrots - especially those from Australia and South America - are very popular among new Russians. They are quite the fashion," says Galina, who is selling her South American Hyacinthine Macaw for $1,500.


Birds from Australia - which strictly prohibits the export of many animals, thus making it more difficult to smuggle them out - are even more expensive. Alexei, for example, is selling a pink cockatoo for $2,500 - a price he considers to be reasonable. "Exoty are for rich people, and for rich people $2,000 is nothing," he says.


Other rare animals include the $700 red mongoose, which shares a cage with a South American playing monkey, selling for $1,500. The salesman, however, is reluctant to take them out of the cage. "They are not domesticated at all and act very aggressively toward people," he says.


BOTH THREATENING AND THREATENED


Once they make the sale, animal vendors do not appear to worry whether or not the "pet" might pose a threat to its owners. Vladimir Frolov, the deputy director of the Moscow Zoo, recalls one incident a few years ago when the zoo got an emergency call from the anxious owner of a jaguar, who kept the animal on the grounds of his suburban villa. "He was worried because the jaguar had gotten loose and was walking freely through the residential area," Frolov says. Armed with a special gun that shoots tranquilizers, Frolov and his colleagues went out to sedate the animal and put it back in its cage.


Nor do vendors care whether or not the animal, once sold, has much of a chance of survival. Most of the customers have no idea how to care for or feed these exotic animals, and no one makes an effort to educate them.


"Unfortunately money is not enough to care for an animal," says Moscow veterinarian Alla Bezuchova. "These creatures are very special. One needs to know the animal's diet and climate regulations. Rich people who buy them as a toy may have no idea how to keep them and very often the animal is doomed to die."


Take, for example, Alexei - a typical Ptichy client. A wealthy businessman from Yekaterinburg, Alexei made a special trip to Moscow to buy a present for his daughter. He and his wife decided to surprise their animal-loving girl with a special birthday treat - a fuzzy lemur. "If it were my birthday, I would prefer a boa. But I cannot have both a boa and a lemur in the same house. The boa would eat the lemur," Alexei says. Even without the boa, however, Alexei is not very optimistic about the animal's chances of surviving.


The lack of any control over the exotic animal market poses another threat for curious, cash-rich customers. Since the animals are carried in illegally, none of them are checked for diseases or subject to a quarantine. Many of the animals are ill, says Sergei Plotkin, a customs official who serves as the director of the nursery that cares for confiscated animals.


"If an animal is brought into the country illegally, it is not tested by veterinary doctors," says veterinarian Vladimir Sedov. "We should not forget that many animals - especially monkeys - may carry diseases that can be dangerous for people. They may carry tuberculosis, yellow fever, hepatitis A and many other serious illnesses humans can catch that are difficult to treat."


Of course, not all of the exotic creatures found in Moscow are imported illegally, but Ptichy vendors say the vast majority are brought in to Russia without documentation. This is why market sellers are reluctant to reveal their last names. And after Moscow officials raided the market last month and seized the exotic wares, vendors are even more wary of the prying eyes of journalists.


Technically, they don't have that much to worry about. Once they pay their daily 250 ruble deposit to rent a market stall, the Ptichy Rynok administration doesn't care what they sell.


Furthermore, importing and selling animals without permission is not a criminal offense under the Russian Constitution. These transgressions are a violation of the civil code, which calls for the offender to be fined 10 minimum salaries - about $34 - and for his animals to be confiscated.


The growing problem of these illegal imports has raised concern among certain authorities. Moskompriroda, the city's ecological department, has made some effort to control the situation.


"What is going on there is completely out of control. They sell animals without any documentation or medical information, and the market administration doesn't care," says Alexander Pryakhin, chief of Moskompriroda, whose office recently conducted the raid at Ptichy Rynok, confiscating a dozen rare animals. "We found a tiger boa, flying squirrel, loris, golden marmoset, Australian possum, caiman crocodile and a pink cockatoo," says Pryakhin, adding that most of the animals are in the Red Book.


"All of these animals are prohibited from import and export by international convention," Pryakhin says, referring to the CITES, or Conference on International Trading of Endangered Species, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization convention passed in 1973. As one of 142 international signatories of the convention, Russia is prohibited from importing or exporting endangered animals.


In the absence of their own criminal laws, Russian authorities must rely on this convention to try to tame the problem. Pryakhin, for example, says his office will conduct periodic raids at Ptichy Rynok to confiscate the endangered animals.


WHERE DO THEY GO?


The animals that are seized at the border or through a raid are then sent to a special nursery run by the State Customs Committee. There the animals are tested for illnesses and treated. After being kept in quarantine for a 30-day period, the facility tries to find homes for them in Russian zoos and nurseries.


According to Natalya Istratova, a spokeswoman for the Moscow Zoo, the zoo has adopted reptiles, chimpanzees and parrots that were brought into the country illegally.


"Last year, we took 10 snakes whose mouths were sewn up," says Istratova, adding that zoologists were not able to identify at least one of the reptiles. While most of the imported animals are marketed as exotic pets for new Russians, Istratova says, on rare occasions they are destined to be the main course in a restaurant.


"They always sew up the mouths of snakes headed for restaurants," Istratova says. "We had to conduct surgery on each of them to open their mouths."


Istratova, who is also the vice president of the Moscow Society for Animal Protection, says there is little activists can do to help these creatures as long as the Russian Constitution does not punish offenders. "The situation is totally out of control. Poachers import animals because they know it is not a crime to bring them in and sell them [in Russia]," Istratova says. "In order to halt the illegal import, Russia must make this a criminal offense just as all civilized countries have."


Other countries on the receiving end of the exoty trade do have a smuggling problem, but offenders receive harsher punishment. In the United Kingdom, for example, the illegal import of animals is considered a criminal offense, automatically leading to a police investigation. If convicted, the smuggler may go to prison. And in Sweden, where customs officials catch illegal importers two to five times a month, offenders may also face several years in prison.


It is no wonder, then, that Russia - with its lenient legislation - is such an attractive destination for these endangered pets.


"All customs can do is merely fine the poacher a minimal amount and confiscate the animal," Istratova says. "Is that enough punishment for those who make good money selling exotic animals? Can it stop them? Of course not."