Environment Ministry monitoring smuggling of animals online

Minister of State for Environment and Forests Anil Madhav Dave on Monday said the ministry is monitoring all the online websites involved in the smuggling of rare animals and will soon take necessary action against them.

Some of the websites involved in the sale of rare animals include Quikr.com, QuickIndia.in and OLX.in and Gumtree.com among a dozen others.

Outlining the steps taken against such animal smuggling, Dave said: "Services of Cyber Crime Specialist on contractual basis is being utilised to carry out regular cyber patrolling to detect any posts and offers over such trade portals on the World Wide Web."

"On detection of such offers, details are retrieved of the suspect and the information is passed on to relevant enforcement agencies for legal action," the minister said.

According to the ministry, a meeting of representatives from online trade portals was convened on May 19, 2016 to discuss issues pertaining to online wildlife trade and sensitise them on illegal wildlife trade.

The information was given to the Rajya Sabha by Dave in a written reply.

--IANS

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