Search for wildlife trafficking gang smuggling helmeted hornbill to India

The Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation has launched an investigation into how a helmeted hornbill (rhinoplax vigil), a rare bird species, was smuggled from Thailand to India and who was involved, after the bird was returned to Thailand today.

Sukhee Boonsang, director of the Wildlife Conservation Office of the department, said today that department officials will join forces with natural resources and environment police in their investigation.

Sadudee Phanpakdee, director of the Office of Wildlife and Plant Conservation under CITES, said he suspects that some officials at Don Mueang airport may have been involved in the trafficking of the bird, which is believed to have been ordered by a billionaire in India who has a huge private zoo.

He said that an Indian passenger, suspected to be the trafficker, paid an excess luggage fee for an untagged big box in which the bird was kept, adding that the box was found on the conveyor belt at the arrival airport in India without going through the proper channel.

He admitted that the luggage scanning X-ray machines at the airport can detect only metals and explosives, but not live animals or plants, hence, the chances of them evading detection.

The helmeted hornbill is a large bird and can be found in southernmost Thailand, in the Budo-Sungai Padi National Park in Bacho district of Narathiwat province, according to Preeda Tiansongrasamee, a researcher on hornbills.

He said that poachers usually catch adult hornbills and their chicks in their nests and sell them on the black market for between 20,000 and 30,000 baht each.