VietNamNet Bridge – Here in Con Cuong district of the central province of Nghe An, the ecosystem has been in danger, while a lot of animal species may get extinct as they have been killed everyday to become the food at the parties.

The Pu Mat National Park is one of the biggest biodiversity conservation areas in Vietnam where there are thousands of animal and plant species. Though a “red belt” has been installed to protect the conservation area and its flora and fauna, animals still have been killed with complete impunity, thus causing a serious threat to the local ecosystem.

The people, who are introduced themselves as the owners of restaurants who seek to buy wild animals, would be warmly welcomed in Con Cuong district.

A local man told the visitors, who they believed were seeking to buy wild animal meat, that it would be better to go to the communes around the Pu Mat National Park, where they would be able to find anything they want.

“Everything can be found there, from wild boar to fox, from badger to lynx or deer. However, it is easiest to find monkeys. You can buy as much as you can, while the prices are reasonable,” he said.

The guide then led the visitors to Yen Khe commune, located adjacent to the Pu Mat National Park, which was introduced as the biggest supply source of wild animals in Con Cuong district.

A local resident in Trung Chinh hamlet of Yen Khe commune showed the addresses of some 10 wild animal suppliers in the locality, saying that the suppliers always have live monkeys for sale.

The resident warned that all the monkeys have injuries because they were caught with traps. They either lost hands or legs, or other organs on their bodies. There were only some intact monkeys which would be sold at higher prices. Each of them, about three kilos, would be sold at one million dong.

Since the guests could not find any satisfactory monkeys to buy, they left for another address. Cuong, the owner of the house, showed two monkeys which he caught two months ago. He offered to sell the monkeys at 1.5 million dong for each, because they monkeys both had injuries.

The wild animal trade has been prospering in Yen Khe commune. Some of them hunt for wild animals every day, others collect the animals to sell to clients.

The animal meat here is relatively cheap. A wild boar is priced at 250,000-300,000 dong per kilo, while monkey or porcupine 300,000-350,000 dong.

The hunters here can live well with their job. Every time when they go hunting in the forests, they can catch hundreds of kilos of animals. Both adult and small animals would be hunted.

A lot of animals died right after they fell into traps. Some of them were luckier, because they only got injuries. However, their lives would last for some more days only, because sooner or later they would be sold to the people who kill them to process specialty food.

Every hunting trip can bring the income of ten million dong, which is really a big sum of money for local residents. Therefore, tens of groups of hunters go to the forests every day with their traps and shotguns.

Not only in Yen Khe, wild animals have also been chased in the border commune of Chi Khe, where most of local residents are ethnic minorities. The people here have been hunting for wild animals for a lot of years already, and they eat wild animal meat every day.

Thien Nhien