Wildlife smuggling in New Zealand

New Zealand has a number of rare and endangered species and there have been cases of wildlife smuggling. New Zealand is a signatory to CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) which was set up to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. CITES is administered by the Department of Conservation. Prosecutions from smuggling wildlife can be made under the Trade in Endangered Species Act 1989.

The Wildlife Enforcement Group, a three-person team drawn from three government departments (the New Zealand Customs Service, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Department of Conservation), was set up in 1992 to investigate wildlife smuggling to and from New Zealand.^[1] The WEG's activities led to 24 prosecutions, but the group was gradually disbanded between 2012 and 2014, and since that time there has been no dedicated task force policing wildlife smuggling in New Zealand.^[2] The WEG was supposed to have been replaced by a larger Environmental Crime Network, or by a digital hub, but neither eventuated.^[3] The disbanding of WEG was seen as creating a potential opportunity for poachers to exploit New Zealand wildlife.^[4][5]

Since then, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI – formerly the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry) and Department of Conservation (DOC) have committed to working together to target wildlife smugglers, with support from Customs, under a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2017.^[3] This collaboration the first two prosecutions for illegally importing elephant ivory in 2013 and 2015, and for importing Asiatic Black bear bile in 2020.^[6] The agencies also share information with similar agencies overseas, which can result in convictions elsewhere.^[7] But while illegal animal products continue to be intercepted coming into New Zealand, since the WEG was disbanded nobody has been arrested for smuggling native species out of the country; the last successful prosecution, for gecko smuggling, was in 2012.^[3]

New Zealand endemic geckos, being colourful and diurnal, are valuable to collectors and for thousands of dollars overseas.^[3] Smuggling attempts have continued, with a Marlborough green gecko stolen from a visitor-centre terrarium, and a taped-shut lunchbox discovered in 2017 in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens containing 58 native lizards, almost all dead.^[8][9] Herpetologist Cary Knox has recognised individual geckos from populations he studied advertised for sale online.^[3] While some New Zealand species were legally exported before the law was changed in 1989, a popular European website for reptile collectors lists species such as harlequin geckos (Tukutuku rakiurae) and jewelled geckos (Naultinus gemmeus) which have never been legally exported. These reptiles are regularly traded at reptile shows in Germany.^[3]

Cooperation with overseas agencies resulted in the return to New Zealand of two previously-smuggled jewelled geckos from Germany in 2016. One died in quarantine at Wellington Zoo, and the survivor was given a new home at an enclosure at Otago Museum. The gecko could not be returned to the wild due to biosecurity risks, but Knox was able to identify the original plant it had been poached from, and some of that tree was added to its new enclosure.^[10]