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Originally Posted by kai
Hello Thor,
Aren't these auctioned off for the good cause?
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Yes, that is indeed the approach of the CITES Management Authority (M.A.) of many countries. The legislation as such allows for the M.A. to auction off confiscated effects from species listed on CITES Appendix II/EU Annex B or lower. Personally, I think this is a great approach and I would love the possibility of making my own department at least partly self-sustaining like that.
However, from the Ministry administration (under which the Danish M.A. belongs) there is a wish as to "not to send confusing signals to the population". You see, here in Europe our governments do all the thinking for us, and of course the common citizen simply wouldn't be able to grasp the good intentions behind such an auction or the benefits it could potentially bring...
(and I use this smiley
very sparingly)
So no, unfortunately no auctions here. Confiscated effects that are in some way unique, educational or may serve as a taxonomical reference are stored for the purpose of lending out to schools, museums or as a later reference for ourselves and then we whack the crap out of the rest.
The educational part I'm really all for and I'm also happy that we in that regard have around 15 large metal trunks filled with different confiscated effects and each accompanied by an educational pack consisting of books and DVD's. These trunks are continuously lent out to public schools in the country and I think this is very valuable from a conservationist point of view. -You've gotta catch 'em while they're young!
All the best, - Thor
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Dear mods, I'm sorry for going so very much off topic here and I realize that I could have written kai a pm instead. However, I thought it might be of interest to others too, to hear how we do in at least one country. If you mods feel like it, you are more than welcome to delete this post. No hard feelings from here at all!