No heads-up for ‘smugglers’
Forestry Administration officers sent two suspected wildlife smugglers to court in Stung Treng province yesterday after they were arrested while allegedly smuggling disembodied heads and hooves of the increasingly rare Chinese serow – a type of wild goat – into Cambodia from Laos, officials said.
Provincial Forestry Administration director Iev Ektha Savatty said that the suspects Ou Vandy, 40, and an accomplice whose name he could not provide, were arrested on Tuesday, and reportedly confessed to transporting the five serow heads and 20 hooves from Pakse, Laos, in order to sell them in Kratie. ...
According to Kratie provincial police chief Reach Sokhon, the men may have been trying to pass off the serow as hog deer, an even rarer and more valuable mammal, hunted for its purported medicinal value in treating postpartum conditions, pain and broken bones. ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/no-heads-%E2%80%98smugglers%E2%80%99
