Mandrills, chimpanzees, red colobus from Cameroon: French customs handed over 392 skulls of protected primates on Thursday that were intercepted in postal packages in seven months. They are confiscated almost daily by agents at Roissy airport, who denounce the trade, which is as lucrative as it is sick and worrying.
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These skulls, confiscated between May and December 2022 and presented for study at the Natural History Museum (MHN) in Aix-en-Provence, come mainly from Cameroon.
They were intended for collectors in the United States who wanted to build cabinets of curiosities there, or as prizes or gifts for hunting clubs.
“The trade in protected species is one of the most profitable after drugs, weapons and people, with profits ranging from 8 to 20 billion euros per year,” emphasized Gilbert Beltran, interregional customs director of Roissy, during an official ceremony at the Roissy customs headquarters, referring to “dirty trade Human Trafficking” is remembered.
Behind him lay hundreds of skulls on a table and in filled sacks: the long jaws with the sharp teeth of mandrills, the horns of antelopes, rare birds, all these bones came from the African continent. Some insects escape the remains of these protected species.
The emergence of this extraordinary matter dates back to spring 2022: on May 2nd, customs officers from Roissy discovered seven primate skulls in postal packages from Africa. Other inspections found dozens of primate skulls, almost all of the Cercopithecus family, as well as some chimpanzee and mandrill skulls.
“These primates are hunted primarily for their meat. The resale of skulls is a casual trade,” explained Fabrice Gayet, customs sailor and expert in animal and plant trade. According to him, the skulls of small primates are sold for between 30 and 50 euros each, those of drills and mandrills for 400 to 500 euros and those of chimpanzees for between 800 and 1,000 euros.
Critically Endangered
Some packages contain entire specimens, heads or forearms with hands of primates that are destroyed for health reasons. Other species (particularly otters, cats, monitor lizards, birds of prey) are also subject to trade. A total of 718 animal skulls were confiscated by customs within seven months.
Expert reports show that these are primates protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, known as CITES, or the Washington Convention (which regulates international trade in more than 38,000 endangered species of wild fauna and flora). plant species) are protected.
Their distribution is only possible with special permission. None of the packages checked had these permissions.
These primates include the Cameroon colobus monkey, a species endemic to the country and classified as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the mandrill, an “endangered species,” and the drill, which is “at risk.” ” is “.
“Four hundred skulls were confiscated in just under seven months. This suggests a massacre of primates in these forests, which are being plundered to satisfy collectors while these primates are threatened with extinction,” lamented Sabrina Krief, great ape specialist.
After helping to identify specimens from the first seizures, the MHN of Aix-en-Provence very quickly expressed interest in these pieces to enrich its collections and carry out work on iconographic identification and classification.