Chinese Poachers Caught Red-Handed in The Philippines

Twelve crewmen from a Chinese fishing vessel are being held by Philippine authorities.  Their boat rammed into a coral reef, and the authorities discovered the boat was holding 22,000 pounds of pangolin meat.

The pangolin is a rare species of anteater.  It’s protected in most of Asia, and there’s been an international trade ban since 2002.

The Chinese vessel — F/N Min Long Yu — crashed into a coral reef that was part of a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site on Palawan island.  A spokesman for the World Wide Fund for Nature Philippines said:

“It is bad enough that the Chinese have illegally entered our seas, navigated without boat papers and crashed recklessly into a national marine park and World Heritage Site.  It is simply deplorable that they appear to be posing as fishermen to trade in illegal wildlife.”

The Chinese poachers could get up to twelve years on poaching charges, and an additional six years for possession of pangolin meat.

Throw the fuckin’ key away.

And in a strange twist of Karma, two Chinese tourists — they were in their car — were attacked by an elephant in a South African game preserve.  The elephant overturned their car.  They were both injured but not killed.

They were driving through Kruger National Park at around 6:30 a.m. when the elephant charged their vehicle.

All jokes about Karma aside, this was of course a tragic occurrence and the two victims presumably have nothing to do with the global trade in endangered species.  But the comments at the end of the linked article are a glimpse at how people perceive the Chinese and their role in the worldwide slaughter of endangered wildlife:

“Payback for all the endangered species being poached in the name of ‘traditional Chinese medicine.’”

“Elephants are sick and tired of being mistreated. The Chinese drive the ivory trade, how apropos that the elephant should attack them.”

“Maybe when the elephant saw they were Chinese it was trying to get his uncles tusks back.”