BMB seeks sellers of wild cats, birds to café owner

EXOTIC PETS A blue and gold macaw (below) and a serval, a type of wild cat, are among the exotic pets seized by government personnel from a cafe owner in Antipolo City. PHOTO COURTESY OF BMB-DENR

The Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB) is on the trail of traders of illegal wildlife after two wild cats escaped in a residential subdivision in Antipolo City in Rizal province.

While no harm was reported and the servals (Leptailurus serval) eventually recaptured by the owner, Don Michael Perez, wildlife law enforcers still confiscated the cats, along with two exotic birds — a blue-and-gold macaw and a Ducorp’s cockatoo. The animals were turned over to the BMB rescue center in Quezon City.

Rogelio Demelletes Jr., a senior ecosystem management specialist, said the bureau would file formal charges against Perez, an owner of a pet café that featured the serval cats in Quezon City, once local courts resume their regular schedule after the community quarantine.

Violation

He said the BMB was trying to locate Patrick Kelly of Pampanga province who sold the wild cats to Perez a couple of years back.

Records showed that Kelly had a government-issued certificate of wildlife registration for the cats, “but that did not mean (Kelly) was allowed to breed or sell them,” Demelletes said.

The serval, an African native feline, is listed as “endangered” by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Demelletes said Perez violated Republic Act No. 9147 (Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act) when he moved the animals from Pampanga to his café in Quezon City, and just recently due to the lockdown, to his house in Antipolo “without any local transport permit.”

Perez also failed to show the BMB any document for possessing the exotic birds which, he said, he had bought from traders in Pasay City and Marikina City.

A blue-and-gold macaw —PHOTO COURTESY OF BMB-DENR

‘High-end’ collection

Homeowners at Filinvest East Homes in Antipolo sought the help of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources after seeing the cats on the loose on Monday. Servals, which can grow up to 2 feet (0.609 meter), are wild and bigger than lap cats, said Emerson Sy from the Philippine Center for Terrestrial and Aquatic Research, a private research center.

Demelletes, who likened the serval’s size to a cheetah, said there had been records of attacks on humans or other animals.

The BMB operation renewed calls against illegal wildlife trade in the Philippines, specifically the trade of servals, whose kittens are sold for P15,000 to P30,000 each, Sy said.

Sy and the BMB said “hundreds of undocumented servals” were often considered “high-end collection” of pet owners.