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Yahoo!
Wed Aug 21, 7:41 AM ET
MADRID, Spain - Airport police scanning luggage from a flight from Cuba
found two stuffed baby alligators.
They seized them on Monday because the animals are classified as a protected
species under the CITES international
accord and because the 31-year-old Spaniard who had packed them lacked the
necessary certificate, the Civil Guard said Wednesday.
Officers scanning the man's suitcase saw shapes that looked like animals,
and opened it up to find stuffed creatures about 1.5 feet long (30 cm) and with
bright green eyes.
One seemed to have been preserved in an action pose, its tail curved and
mouth open to bare some two dozen small teeth.
The passenger will be fined an amount to be decided by the Treasury Ministry
because the infraction was detected at a customs post.
The ministry will also decide what to do with the alligators, although in
most cases like this the animals are destroyed, Civil Guard spokesman Ignacio
Fernandez said.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna
and Flora, or CITES, came into force in 1975.
So far this year, police at Madrid's Barajas Airport have seized 14
CITES-protected animals, some of them live, or animal parts coming in on flights
from the Americas or Asia.
The parts included turtle shells, elephant tusks and deer antlers, while the
live species included frogs and parrots, some of the latter packed inside
suitcases. "We don't know how they survive," Fernandez said.
(dw/cg) | 
