South African animal protection group seeks probe into export of wildlife to Gujarat’s Vantara zoo
A conservationists’ forum expressed concerns about the legality of the transfer of wild animals to the Ambani-owned centre in Gujarat.
The Wildlife Animal Protection Forum of South Africa has urged the country’s environment ministry to investigate the export of several wild animals to the Vantara animal rescue and rehabilitation centre in Gujarat’s Jamnagar.
Vantara, which is owned by the Ambani family-led Reliance Industries, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 4.
The WAPFSA is a coalition of 30 South African organisations that work with the government on matters such as protecting wild animals and conserving their natural environments.
In a letter to South African Environment Minister Dion George on March 6, the WAPFSA said that it was “aware that legitimate concerns have been raised within CITES regarding the large amount of different live species of wild animals that are being imported to [Vantara]”.
CITES, or the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, is a multilateral treaty that regulates the international trade of endangered animals and plants.
WAPFSA told the ministry that a case for “India’s potential non-compliance” had been discussed at a meeting of the CITES standing committee in November 2023. The secretariat had received information about importing live animals into India, including specimens of critically endangered species, the coalition added.
In July 2023, representatives of the Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, or Vantara, explained to officials at the CITES secretariat that in recent years, the centre had “rescued animals in difficult conditions outside India and imported them to India from various countries”, WAPFSA said.
“Despite this explanation concerns have been expressed about the legality of those transactions and the methods used to obtain CITES documents,” the coalition said.
The letter specifically highlighted concerns relating to the export of leopards, cheetahs, tigers and lions from South Africa to Vantara.
A “significant number of captive-bred specimens in facilities in South Africa could have been and are being traded for commercial purposes”, the WAPFSA added.
