A Peruvian\u00a0bloke found guilty of smuggling an Andean saddle-backed tamarin\u00a0monkey and\u00a0a yellow-footed tortoise into Australia in July last year, just\u00a0received a $6,000 fine.\u00a0 It’s also mentioned that he aspires to be a doctor and is in his second year of a medical degree.\u00a0\u00a0 Well he can’t be blind\u00a0and deaf and has a reasonable education, so must have been entirely aware that it was illegal – and why.\u00a0 In any case, it was my understanding that ‘ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law’.\u00a0 Did he sit the monkey and tortoise on his lap for the flight over here, or did he hide them in his pocket and socks?\u00a0 Live animals clearly need a good supply of oxygen to survive, so if their heads weren’t sticking out of his handbag, then they were hidden.<\/p>\n
As an island country, Australia is in the envious position of being able to police border crossings relatively easily.\u00a0 Australia has to date been free of terrible diseases such as Foot and Mouth and Rabies,\u00a0insects such as Screw Worm Fly, and plant disease such as Dutch Elm Disease.<\/p>\n
But this is clearly largely due to luck, not good management.\u00a0 Every year seems to greet the new arrival of at least one new plant disease or verminous\u00a0 insect species; from fire ants to elm leaf beetles to exotic species of seaweed.\u00a0 These introduced species\u00a0cost millions of dollars and\u00a0years of effort\u00a0to eradicate, and often can’t be eradicated at all – causing permanent environmental harm, which cannot be quantified.<\/p>\n
All it would take is for one person to successfully smuggle in an animal carrying Foot and Mouth disease or rabies, and our population of susceptible animals would be decimated.\u00a0 And our economy.<\/p>\n
A $6,000 fine?\u00a0 Is this some sort of bizarre\u00a0bad joke?\u00a0\u00a0 And who gives a rat’s toss as to whether the person responsible for risking the health of our native and domesticated animals, aspires to be a doctor!\u00a0\u00a0 As if that gives them some sort of brownie points towards being considered a\u00a0better human being than someone who does not<\/em> aspire to be a doctor.\u00a0\u00a0Even if he is not studying to be a doctor due to prestige or a good income, someone who\u00a0has deliberately smuggled in two animals\u00a0is demonstrating a disregard for\u00a0laws and disregard for the welfare of others.\u00a0\u00a0 And they deliberately lied on their signed customs statement, when entering Sydney.\u00a0 Prime medical practitioner material?\u00a0 I think not.<\/p>\n Any non-citizens should be immediately deported upon being found guilty of smuggling in live or dead animals, or plant material, and barred from ever returning.\u00a0 And for Australian citizens – how about a mandatory jail term, set at a minimum of\u00a06 months.<\/p>\n It is an absolute tragedy that the risk to all aspects of Australia (environment,\u00a0economy, people) from illegal importations, is not taken more seriously.\u00a0 Our pathetic quarantine breach punishments are embarrassing.<\/p>\n As for the person who tipped off the authorities regarding the illegally imported Peruvian monkey and tortoise,\u00a03 weeks after the animals\u00a0arrival in Townsville\u00a0– they should be rewarded – we should all thank them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Peruvian\u00a0bloke found guilty of smuggling an Andean saddle-backed tamarin\u00a0monkey and\u00a0a yellow-footed tortoise into Australia in July last year, just\u00a0received a $6,000 fine.\u00a0 It’s also mentioned that he aspires to be a doctor and is in his second year of a medical degree.\u00a0\u00a0 Well he can’t be blind\u00a0and deaf and has a reasonable education, so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6,7],"tags":[143,176,220],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1977"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1984,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977\/revisions\/1984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}