The Indonesian Natural Resources Conservation Authority thwarted efforts to smuggle dozens of endemic animals protected by the Government of Indonesia.

Dozens of these endemic animals were secured on a Mount Dempo Passenger Ship when the ship transited at the Sorong City seaport, Sunday (11/20/2022) evening.

Dozens of these endemic animals are planned to be smuggled to Java and abroad.

Joint officers from the Conservation Authority along with the port quarantine office and a number of police officers immediately conducted a search on board the passenger ship.

A number of places on the ship's deck were searched by the joint officers. The inspection was carried out carefully by a number of these officers.

From the raid, officers found a number of protected endemic animals hidden in a number of containers.

After being successfully secured, the protected animals were immediately secured by officers to the wharf for data collection.

It is suspected that the information on the raid was leaked which caused the smugglers to flee when officers carried out a raid on the endemic animal hideouts.

Head of the Center for Conservation and Natural Resources, West Papua Province, Jhoni Santoso said that from the results of these arrests, his party managed to secure as many as dozens of endemic animals in the form of protected birds in West Papua province.

"What we have secured are 10 mambruk birds, 6 black-headed Kasturi birds, 1 red parrot and five cassowary birds, with a total of 22 animals being secured," said Jhoni.

According to Jhoni, the protected animals are planned to be put in habituation cages and will soon be released into the wild.

"For the time being we put them in the Habituation cage and soon we will release them into the wild," said Jhoni.

Jhoni revealed that the smugglers had fled when officers carried out an inspection on the ship. However, they have pocketed the identity of the perpetrator. His party will cooperate with the local police to arrest the perpetrators of smuggling. .

"The smugglers managed to escape, because it was suspected that the information on this raid was leaked, but we already have the identity of the smugglers. We will work with the local police to catch the smugglers," he concluded.

Meanwhile, the head of the class 1 quarantine station, Sorong I Wayan Kertanegara, said that the investigation into the smuggling case was still ongoing to uncover the perpetrators of the smuggling.

His party fully supports the efforts of the Government of Indonesia to preserve these protected endemic animals that are almost extinct.

The act of smuggling animals in the province of Papua has been very widespread lately and needs serious attention from the Government of Indonesia. If not, these animals are threatened with extinction because they are hunted by illegal animal hunters to be traded on the black market.

The perpetrators must also be given harsh punishments so that there is a deterrent effect for the mafia selling protected endemic animals in Indonesia.