Having been a wildlife enforcement officer for over 20 years
and having also seen just about everything when it comes
to the illegal take,
or possession and smuggling of wildlife, I must say at this
particular two year investigation into the smuggling of rare
and endangered Asian Tropical Lady Slipper Orchids was by
far the most interesting and demanding!
It all started on March 2nd, 2000 at the Winnipeg International
Airport in Manitoba, Canada. I received a call from a Canada
Customs Inspector that a "very large" shipment
of orchids had just arrived at air cargo. The Customs Inspector
indicated that the importer of record was a local orchid
nursery by the name of "Ever Spring Orchid Nursery" and
that the country of export on record was Taiwan. Having already
finished my morning cup of coffee I decided to head on over
to the airport and take a little closer look at these intriguing
plants. During the short drive to the airport it dawned on
me that I knew very little about orchids and knew even less
with respect to the identification of them. Now what! I needed
to find someone who could assist me and who could also do
this identification on plants that had no blooms. Did I forget
to add that there were over 2,000 of these little plants
in the shipment! It now looked like my day would be full
and far from boring!
I managed to convince someone from the Manitoba Orchid Society
in Winnipeg to help me (after three other society members
declined the invitation). During my telephone conversation
with this orchid expert I was informed that we would likely
find some Appendix I, Lady Slipper (Paphiopedilum species),
in the shipment. I knew the Paph species were Appendix I
under CITES but how, in god's green earth, did this fella
know there would likely be some of these highly endangered
orchids within this shipment? I may be slow -but the light
bulb finally came on that this company must have previously
imported some of these highly prized and very rare orchids
into Winnipeg. This is why the orchid enthusiast had an inkling
that something interesting might be waiting for us at air
cargo.
Accompanied by my inspection kit, a few books on orchid
identification, my orchid expert, a Canada Customs Inspector,
and my green thumb, we dove right into the 13 boxes looking
for anything out of the ordinary. After having opened the
second box in the shipment, and spreading out some of the
orchids located in the box, we noted some very small leafy
bare root orchids. These plants appeared to have been sandwiched
in between much larger orchids within the box. My orchid
expert quickly hollered out "those are Paph species" whereupon
I replied "yeh that's what I thought". I did not
let on at the time that I was somewhat naive in orchid identification
and went on my merry way setting these 30 some "suspect" plants
aside for further analysis.
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My expert explained why he felt
the orchids in question were Paph species and then decided
that we (the Customs Inspector and I) knew enough to continue
the inspection all by ourselves. Truth be known, our expert
suspected that the importer would likely be coming around
shortly to pick up his plants and he really did not want
to be around when the manager of the business arrived. I
found out very quickly that the "orchid enthusiasts" all
seem to know each other and that the "orchid moccasin
telegraph" was functioning just fine!
Anyways, back to my story. In all, we located 211 Paph orchids
and when we compared the Taiwanese CITES export permits to
the shipment we noted that the shipper had not included any
of the Paph's on the permits BUT low and behold there were
211 "Cypripedium formosanum" orchids listed on
accompanying CITES paperwork. Since the Cypripedium is an
Appendix II orchid under CITES, a Taiwanese export permit
would only be required to import these particular orchids
into Canada. It became apparent to us that somebody was trying
to pull the wool over our eyes in an attempt to bring these
endangered lady slipper orchids into Canada.
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