Civil Guard agents in San Bartolomé have reported a man after locating a loggerhead turtle shell in his home, which was placed as decoration on the exterior wall of a tool shed.
The intervention took place last November in this property located on the LZ-2, within the municipality of Arrecife. After verifying that it was "a part of a protected specimen", the agents located the resident, asking him to justify its origin.
"The alleged offender could not prove legal possession, so the corresponding complaint report was formalized, which led to the seizure of the shell, which has been made available to the Customs and Special Taxes Authority, as it is the competent body in the matter," explain from the Civil Guard.
In this regard, it recalls that this species is included in Appendix I of the CITES Convention and that for the possession of the same, parts and by-products, documentation is needed to prove or justify its legal origin.
Along with this intervention, the Civil Guard has communicated another one carried out in the Canary Islands within the framework of the “Thunder” operation, aimed at protecting the species included in the CITES convention.
In this case, the events occurred in Gran Canaria, where a person was investigated for an alleged crime related to the protection of flora, fauna and domestic animals, when, in a routine inspection of a livestock farm, an aviary with four protected exotic birds was located.
The CITES Convention is an international agreement between governments that aims to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not constitute a threat to their survival.
