Kalyaporn Rukthum, 30, was taken into custody in Bang Kapi yesterday after officers found eight slow lorises in four cages in her bedroom. They were acting on a tip that she’d been selling the protected animals on Facebook.
She is being charged for illegal possession of animals as well as illegal trafficking. Both charges can carry jail terms of up to four years and fines as high as THB40,000 each.
All slow lorises are considered endangered and vulnerable animals.
The arrested woman admitted that she illegally purchased a couple of the animals at the weekend market two years ago in order to breed them to make more lorises to sell. She was charging as much as THB2,000 for babies and as much as THB7,000 for fully grown animals.
After her arrest, Kalyaporn confessed but said, in her own defense, that she only sold the lorises to animal lovers, reported Khaosod English.
One expert at the raid on the Bang Kapi home said that Kalyaporn seemed to be caring for the animals well, they were not overcrowded and had correct, nutritious food.
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Nevertheless, the illegal trafficking of slow lorises is gaining much attention since the animals may use body language that humans misinterpret and be mistreated even by animal lovers as a result.
This recent viral video, which got nine million views on Bored Panda’s Facebook page, explains that tickling the cute creatures is paramount to torture, that when they put their arms up in a “cute” way, they are actually terrified and that they often have their teeth painfully removed before being sold as pets so that they can’t defend themselves.
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