Conservation
Born free?
By: Cristina Tanase
On the unclear legislation that gives Romania's animal abusers free rein
Posted: February 2005
The practice of owning non-native wild animals is unfortunately not uncommon in Romania. Animals such as lions, monkeys and even crocodiles have found their way into the homes of photographers, or even genuine animal lovers who may not be interested in exploiting them for commercial interest. There doesn't seem to be any legislation covering exactly who can own a wild animal, and what can be done with it. And nor is legislation any clearer for native endangered species, such as the horned viper (vipera ammodytes), which has become the object of illegal trading irrespective of any existing legal provisions.
''You can see problems related to animal protection everywhere. We see beaten or poisoned stray dogs, we see horses beaten. The problems of the more exotic species are not visible on a daily basis. For many people they remain a seasonal problem, and only grab your attention when you go skiing,'' explains Ioana Tomescu, the head of the Romanian branch of Vier Pfoten, an international animal welfare organisation.
There are now about 10 to 20 lion cubs in Romanian resorts, and most of them don't reach adulthood. Others are sold privately, according to Vier Pfoten.
Ahy, a lioness, was one lucky cub that was brought back to her natural environment: she is now in a Rescue Centre at Shamwari, South Africa. She was only a month and a half old when she was rescued from being a roaming tourist attraction for visitors to Sinaia. She was then adopted from her photographer owner by the honorary consul of Cyprus in Romania, Loizos Karageorges, and lived at the premises of the consulate for four years. She was repatriated last September with the help of Mr Karageorges and the Born Free Foundation, a British organisation that fights for the freedom of wild animals.
Another repatriation action was taken in the spring of 2002, when lion cubs Alex, Jack, Sheba and Tommy left Romania, heading for the Rhino and Lion Nature Reserve, in South Africa . They too had been working for photographers in Poiana Brasov, until the confiscation action took place at Vier Pfoten's initiative. They were kept and treated for one month at the Ilioara Veterinary Clinic, before being transported to South Africa.
Vier Pfoten succeeded in confiscating the four lion cubs after scrutinising Romanian legislation in great detail. Ioana Tomescu says they had to use international conventions such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which was ratified by the Romanian government in 1994. According to CITES, lions fall under Appendix II that includes ''all species which although not necessarily now threatened with extinction may become so unless trade in specimens of such species is subject to strict regulation.'' (Article II 2a). Vier Pfoten also used the legislation related to tax evasion, because the photographers wouldn't give their customers any receipts. There was no Romanian specific related legislation at that moment to use, Tomescu says.
The Romanian legislation does contain a law on animal protection, law number 205/2004. However, this is not of much help to specialists, who consider it irrelevant. ''This is an incomplete law because it doesn't state clearly what types of animal it refers to - it is only designed for animals with or without a master. It does not distinguish between wild and domesticated animals,'' says biologist Eleonora Popescu, an assistant counsellor in the Conservation of the Biological Diversity and Biosecurity Department from the Ministry of Environment.
Indeed, article 1 of this law lays out ''the necessary measures to be taken in order to assure the life and welfare conditions of the animals with or without an owner''. The law does not specify who can keep such animals as pets. The only restriction is on children under 16 years who must have parental approval. There is no provision regarding either exotic animals or strictly protected local animals kept as pets.
A proposal regarding the ownership of wild animals as pets was forwarded last November to the Ministry of Agriculture by the Sanitary, Veterinary and Food Security National Authority, but for the time being, the proposal is still pending, says Gabriel Predoi, the general director of the Sanitary and Veterinary General Department (DGSV). Until then, the owners' obligations are stated by the animals' protection law, Predoi says. According to articles 3 and 5 of this law, owners must provide the pet with sufficient food and water, enough space to move around and proper health care if required.
None of these conditions, however, are fulfilled by the photographers in the resorts. ''The lion cubs are fed minimally, for fear that they might grow up too quickly and therefore lose their 'cuteness'. Their owners have said as much,''Ioana Tomescu says. The cubs need as much special care as do newborn babies: they must be fed with milk regularly until six months, when they should begin to receive chopped meat.
Veterinarian Silviu Petrovan points out another legal flaw to be found in law 647/2001, that approves the capture, harvest and trade of animals from the wild. ''According to this law, if you want to import an exotic animal, you find that you have almost impossible demands. You have to have an environmental study for each of the species not native to Romania,'' he says. The provision is stated by article 13, paragraphs 2 and 3 that say the environmental study is designed to assess the impact of the imported species' introduction to Romania. The study must be done at the importer's expense.
Thus, the study also becomes compulsory for Australian parrots for example, despite their having been bred in Romania since the 1960s and adapting well to domesticity. Another example would be fish imported from Singapore, whose great number of species makes any environmental study impossible and unrealistic, Mr Petrovan says.
''This law practically blocks the possibility of legally importing non-native animals,'' he explains. He says a person who legally buys a cayman from Hungary - a country where caymans are legally bred - would end up owning the reptile illegally in Romania , since he would not be able to do the environmental study. However, a CITES permit stating the animal's country of origin and the sanitary-veterinary documents is compulsory for all imported animals to be found in the CITES appendices.
Breeding is allowed only for scientific purposes
Yet it is not just exotic animals that are being kept illegally, to be seen being pulled on leads behind hawkers in resorts. Animals from protected local fauna face the same problem, as trade in them is conducted quite openly in classified ad sections of certain daily newspapers. Silviu Petrovan says he noticed an increase in such advertising after an irresponsible, poorly researched article appeared in the business newspaper Capital about people who collect horn vipers ñ Vipera ammodytes ñ from their natural habitat with the intention of selling their venom.
''According to the Bern Convention, the horn viper is a strictly protected animal. The law says clearly: you're allowed to harvest the animal, with a specific authorisation from the minister, but only for educational and scientific purposes, not for commercial purposes.''
Law 462/2001, which covers naturally protected areas, conservation of natural habitats, wild flora and fauna speaks about this kind of prohibition. Article 26a states that it is prohibited ''to harvest, capture, kill, destroy or hurt'' any of the plant and animal species under a restricted protected regime, ''and the horn viper falls into this category. At the same time, article 26f prohibits ìthe owning, transportation, commerce or exchange with any purpose (of these animals) without the competent environmental authority's authorisation.'' And the punishment is clearly spelt out. Any person who breaks these laws is liable to a fine of between 500,000 and 20 million lei; article 48c allows for fines for companies contravening the law of between 20 and 75 million lei.
Despite these legal standards, 26 horn vipers were confiscated last December from a person who was illegally breeding them, and sent to the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj for recovery until their release back into the wild. Another 24 Hermann's turtles were confiscated by the Hungarian authorities while they were being taken out of Romania, and are now living in the Portile de Fier area, where Romania's largest national park is located.
Zoos: a source of illegal animal trade
The number of non-native privately kept wild animals is not accurately known, but Gabriel Predoi says that the number of owners of exotic animals is rising. Vier Pfoten and the ministry are working on a project that will monitor wild animals that are kept privately.
Specialists in the field have identified a number of origins of this illegal traffic. ''All the lions that photographers use or that people have as pets are from the Romanian zoos,'' Silviu Petrovan says. ''It's impossible to trade them to another zoo, because they all have lions. When a mother delivers the babies, the veterinarian writes a paper stating that out of three, two died,'' he asserts. According to law 191/2002 on zoos and public aquariums, anyone who ''takes live animals and cubs'' can be fined between 20 and 100 million lei (article 12 ñ 1c). The fine rises to between 100 to 200 million lei if the person ''sells live animals to institutions or persons unauthorised to keep a zoological park'' (article 12 ñ 2b).
When questioned, Anca Florea, the director of the Bucharest Zoo, says the zoo has neither sold nor received any request from private individuals interested in buying wild animals. ''The law prohibits us from privately selling animals,'' she told me.
Yet Ioana Tomescu is dismissive. She says that a good and humane method for stopping this traffic would be the animals' sterilisation. ''I don't know of any Romanian zoo to have done this. The only explanation I find for this is that this trade is a source of income for them.'' Counsellor Popescu says that a new ordinance - 742/2004 - due to become law soon, legalises both sterilisation and euthanasia as possible solutions to the problem of keeping animal populations under control and thus reducing illegal traffic. The decisions will be made by the zoo management supervised by an ethical committee, composed of non-zoo employees.
Rescue centres would also serve as a worthwhile solution for saving these animals, but there is none in Romania at the moment, Popescu says. Therefore, the only places that remain available are the zoos, which Popescu doesn't regard as good solutions. The animals' repatriation costs are can also be very high and can be prohibitive if no sponsorship is available.
But repatriation isn't always a solution. CITES disallows repatriation of any animal which has been somehow hurt: for example, an animal whose claws were cut or whose fangs were removed will not meet the necessary conditions for its repatriation. Another danger that occurs is with those captive bred individuals who lose their natural abilities to survive life in the wild. ''They neither know how to feed nor how to hunt. They need to be taught how to acclimatise,'' biologist Popescu says.
Giving away pets
During the last two years of working at the Bucharest Zoo, biologist Eleonora Popescu says they received about 200 donations from private people, which included Florida turtles and exotic birds. She says people bought the baby turtles from pet shops, when they were about the size of a coin. People were told that the turtles would stay small. In fact, when they become adults, they are about the size of a dinner plate. Expertise in pet shops in Romania is very, very low. One example I heard involved a Californian king snake being fed an egg about every three weeks or so. Literally, the snake was starving and eggs are not at all its natural diet. But faced with the choice between death and starvation, it had little option but to eat the egg. Now it is with owners who have more knowledge, but it remains about half the size it should be for its age.
Popescu received these donations in order to prevent their owners simply killing them or throwing them into the lakes around the city, hoping they might survive. Vier Pfoten also receives requests from owners of exotic animals who are most likely to have bought the animal on a whim, and no longer want it. They are desperate to find a home for it and often ask Vier Pfoten staff to take in their pets. ''We cannot respond positively, because unfortunately our funds are very limited. The standard answer from the authorities to our requests for help are, 'Fine, and what do we do with it next?''' Tomescu says. She says these animals' needs and temperament are not compatible with the notion of a pet and that's why people shouldn't treat them as they do cats and dogs who have been bred for domesticity and can adapt much better.
Loizos Karageorges says he never had intended to keep Ahy. ''Our intention was to save her from the beginning, but after six months, everybody loved her,'' he says. The consul thought of donating the lioness to the zoo, but says he changed his mind after seeing the conditions. So Ahy remained in her cage in the consulate's yard, and during winter she moved to her shelter in the building's basement. Now, both Mr Karageorges and Ahy's keeper can access the Born Free Foundation's website and read about her rehabilitation in the reserve.
Unfortunately, most lion cubs will never make it back to their natural habitats. One reason hampering their progress is a lack of awareness among people, as Ioana Tomescu points out. ''Many people think that if they pay for a photo with that lion, they will help it, but doing so has an impact that is precisely the opposite. Yes, maybe the lion will get some extra meat from that 60,000 or 100,000 lei that day. But soon, another lion will be following it.''
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