Negros police put on alert for gecko trade

BACOLOD CITY—Police have been put on alert for the illegal trade and transport of geckos following reports of rampant buying of the animals by foreigners for reasons still unclear.

Joan Gerangaya, Bacolod community environment and natural resources officer (Cenro), said police were ordered to arrest anyone catching, selling or transporting geckos in violation of the Philippine Wildlife Act.

Authorities in airports and seaports here were also put on alert for anyone transporting geckos and other wildlife out of Negros Occidental.

Environment officials earlier received reports that foreigners had been offering hefty sums for native geckos, nocturnal lizards that are known for the loud sound they make.

Valentin Talavero, provincial environment and natural resources officer, said some buyers were offering to pay up to P100,000 for geckos weighing at least 500 grams.

Among the foreigners buying geckos are Koreans and Chinese. Talavero said some of them wanted to use geckos for AIDs research.

Errol Abada Gatumbato, vice president and managing director of the Philippines Biodiversity Conservation Foundation, said the illicit trade of gecko was rampant also in other provinces.

Gatumbato said the lizards are being collected to be used for gambling or medicinal research. He said the rate at which the geckos are being collected and traded has become alarming.

The Philippine Wildlife Act, according to Gerangaya, has made it a crime to trade, collect, hunt or possess wildlife.

Gerangaya recalled receiving applications for permits to transport geckos but he refused to issue the permits.

People who want to acquire permits to collect or breed geckos have to go directly to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources regional office, said Gerangaya.

He said since his office announced that the trading of geckos was illegal, applications for permits stopped coming although environment officials continued to receive reports of clandestine trading of geckos.

“We are still receiving reports of people catching geckos in the hinterlands as they allegedly are being bought at very high prices,” Gerangaya said.

Reports of a massive illegal trading in geckos come in the wake of the discovery of illegal extraction of corals in seas in Mindanao after authorities seized a shipment of corals about to be smuggled outside the country.