Although the buyer is well fed and gives it a cool place in the summer, but its hometown is far away in Africa, no friends, no spouse, no offspring, will it be a part of the earth that disappears?
Recently, a special pre-litigation hearing on civil public interest litigation was held at the Wildlife Park in Qingdao, Shandong Province, which originated as an African serval cat. Because of it, prosecutors, animal protection experts, people's watchdogs and friends in the media came together.
Love cats? Spend money on sin
In June 2019, Wang Mou saw a photo of a cat on the Internet, which looked like a leopard, and was very spirited and beautiful. As a cat lover, Wang Mou very much wants to raise a cat of this kind, but he is afraid that he will not be able to raise it well, so he deliberately searched on the Internet. Some people say that it is called a serval cat, and some people say that it is called Savannah, but the most important thing is that the state does not allow individuals to keep this cat, and netizens have different opinions. Although he knew that this cat was a wild animal, Wang Still couldn't control what he wanted to keep.
Wang searched for the keywords "Serval Cat" and "Savannah" on an App, and really found an intended seller. The seller offered 56,000 yuan, asked for an advance deposit of 16,000 yuan, and instructed Wang: "The breed of the cat is Savannah, not a serval cat." ”
On August 15, 2019, the seller changed his mouth to say that he would collect another 10,000 yuan deposit to deliver the goods, and asked Wang to go to a highway exit in Weifang, Shandong To get the cat. In order to see the cat early, Wang set off overnight and finally arrived at the agreed place at 5 a.m. the next day. After the cat arrived, Wang transferred the balance to the seller.
It took so much effort, and spent so much money, plus the seller said that the cat is only 3 months old, Wang Mou is a variety of love for the cat, has been placed in his own store, and then changed to a cool home after the summer of the year. However, when some people passed by his shop, they saw the cat, recognized it as a serval cat, and immediately called "12345" to report it.
On August 6, 2020, Wang received a call from the police station. He voluntarily surrendered and led the police to find the cat.
Selling cats: twists and turns
The public security organs immediately submitted an appraisal application to the Forest Public Security Judicial Appraisal Center of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration. After identification, the cat purchased by Wang Mou was indeed a serval cat and was listed in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). For wildlife listed in Appendix II, trade must be controlled and exploitation inconsistent with its survival must be avoided.
The serval cat is widely distributed in sub-Saharan Africa and is not native to China. How did it cross the ocean? What kind of story has it been? According to Wang's account, the seller claimed to be in Shanxi. According to the chat screenshots and payment records between Wang and the seller, the public security organs locked the seller Zhao and arrested Zhao in Shanxi in November 2020.
Zhao said that he began to do pet trading part-time in April 2019, and in order to attract business, he often hung some relatively high-end pet pictures on the trading website. In the process of hanging the chart, Zhao Mou looked at a cat with leopard prints, at first he called it an ocelot, and later learned that it was a serval cat, which was managed in China with reference to the national second-level protected animals, and was not allowed to trade and raise privately. However, the profits are moving. In May 2019, Zhao Mou, who did not have a cat in his hand, actually hung a group of photos of serval cats on the Internet, casually set a virtual price, and attached contact information. On June 18 of the same year, Wang found him.
The goods are not yet available, but the buyers arrive first! To this end, Zhao Mou looked for a source of goods around the world, and actually found a Russian seller, a price of 6800 US dollars. Subsequently, Zhao offered Wang a price of 56,000 yuan.
The business is about to succeed, but Zhao will not exchange US dollars and needs to find a middleman. At this moment, he remembered the drop-off station with whom he had done business. The consignment station is in the northeast, and the boss helps him find the exchange dealer in minutes, and also undertakes the consignment of the animals by the way. After the Russian seller sent the serval cat to China, the consignment station owner sent someone to pick up the cat to the northeast consignment point.
However, if the goods are shipped from the consignment station, the cat cannot reach Qingdao, but can only go to Weifang. Therefore, Zhao contacted the consignment driver and Wang Mou, and agreed to go to the highway intersection to see the cat to pay the final payment.
Hearing: Both criminal responsibility and compensation for ecological damage
What about cats when people catch them? Mainly distributed in Africa, the serval cat is an exotic species, a mammalian cat, at the top of the food chain. In order to make it survive better, the public security organs have placed the serval cat involved in the case in Qingdao Wildlife Park. After the zoo received the serval cat, it first treated one of its leg injuries, and then considered that it was native to Africa, was a carnivorous animal, and there was no possibility of releasing it locally, so it specially introduced a heterosexual serval cat from abroad.
On November 23, 2020, the Shinan Branch of the Qingdao Municipal Public Security Bureau transferred Wang Mou to the Shinan District Procuratorate for review and prosecution on suspicion of illegally purchasing rare and endangered wild animals and Zhao mou suspected of illegally selling rare and endangered wild animals. After review, the criminal prosecutor believed that the illegal acquisition and sale of wild animals by the two belonged to the scope of civil public interest litigation initiated by the procuratorate, so the clues were transferred to the public interest litigation procuratorial department. According to the local civil public interest litigation jurisdiction regulations, the clue was transferred to the Qingdao Municipal Procuratorate on September 1, 2021.
On September 21, 2021, after a public prosecution initiated by the procuratorate, the Qingdao Shinan District Court sentenced Wang and Zhao to three months' detention, six months' probation, and a fine of 10,000 yuan each for the crime of illegally purchasing rare and endangered wild animals and illegally selling rare and endangered wild animals, and sentenced Zhao to return 56,000 yuan of illegal gains.
In order to make Wang and Zhao realize the harm of their actions, on October 13, the Qingdao Municipal Procuratorate organized a special pre-trial hearing at the Municipal Wildlife Park. Before the hearing, the serval cat was examined, and the zoo director introduced the ecological value of the serval cat, the harm of alien species invasion and the efforts made to care for the serval cat. Zhao Mouyin was in Shanxi and participated in the meeting by video. At the hearing, the prosecutor presented evidence on the illegal conduct of the parties.
According to procurators, in accordance with the provisions of the Wildlife Protection Law, it is prohibited to sell, purchase, or use wildlife under key national protection and their products; to transport, carry, or send wild animals under key national protection and their products out of the country, they shall hold or attach licenses, copies of approval documents, or special labels, as well as quarantine certificates, as well as quarantine certificates; where wildlife species are introduced from abroad, they shall be approved by the competent department for wildlife protection under the State Council. The import of relevant wild animals included in legal provisions from abroad shall also obtain a certificate of permission to import and export in accordance with law. At the same time, the Customs shall carry out entry quarantine in accordance with the law, and handle customs clearance procedures in accordance with regulations on the basis of import approval documents or import and export permit certificates and quarantine certificates. Safe and reliable preventive measures shall be taken to prevent wildlife species from entering the wild environment and to avoid causing harm to the ecosystem when importing wildlife species from abroad. Where it is truly necessary to release them into the wild, it shall be carried out in accordance with the relevant provisions of the State. In this case, the illegal acts of Wang and Zhao contributed to the illegal introduction and rearing of serval cats, which would adversely affect Qingdao's ecological environment and biodiversity, and infringe on the social public interest.
On November 8, the Qingdao Municipal Procuratorate filed a civil public interest lawsuit against the two, demanding that the defendant pay the serval fee and the loss of ecological service functions totaling more than 20,000 yuan.
Source: Political and Legal Committee of Shandong Provincial Party Committee
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