Conservation hoaxes?

Earlier the subject was raised here on venomland regarding a Swedish smuggler being sentenced in court.

One troubling detail concerning that case is a creation called the "Mangshan Pitviper Conservation". It claims to be working with different zoological institutions. A lot of people in the Swedish herp community have suspected that this is nothing other than a curtain act to restore the damaged reputation of the reptile dealer, Johan Pennanen; who is also active on this board and thereby making his business look more legitimate. This suspicion grew stronger earlier this week when he was sentenced in a Swedish court for smuggling reptiles, Zhaoermia amongst other species. I guess it is just very seldom that conservation groups are sentenced for smuggling the target species from the country of origin.
Another disturbing fact is how they were smuggled. They were marked as toys they (there was a king cobra in one of the packages) and shipped by ordinary mail, thereby putting both the animals and other people in harms way.

Also recently another "conservation group" arose in Sweden, the ”Vipera Caucasica Conservation Project”. Not surprisingly, a close friend to Johan is putting this project together. People who asked about what the aims and goals of the project were told to "f**k off" and mind their own business.

Is this a new trend? Reptile dealers and smugglers acting as "conservation groups" to keep their businesses going more smoothly? If so, it is a very disturbing trend that seriously threatens the credibility of these kinds of projects.

Cheers
Patrik, Sweden

Nice words going on here ,
maybe not the best words choosen and of course not the best second Post for a nearly unknown member.
But professional as you guys are , or claiming yourself ... there open questions of course.
The paper is available as pdf and everyone can follow and read what happend and how it end.
But last but not least , i think here will happen to you guys ,what happend to every smxxxxxx (without permission to transport reptiles ) ... ALL of them were banned from this forum in the past .
So why here should be a difference between this what happend and other´s "happend".
Greets Ralph

I deleted the offending and obscene posts of Larsa Darafeyenka, Jonan Pennanen and Danny Breetveld.

You're seriously warned for that!

Even if Ralph is right and that second post of Patrik looks like a balance of accounts with people one doesn't like, it's written factual for the most part and does not contain defamatory statements (with the exception of talking in plural about "dealers and smugglers", what could suggest that also Larsa is involved in smuggling!), but a legitimate question.

So why don't you give answers and tell us a bit more about your aims and efforts in conservation?
That would be very interesting for our community, i think.

So please take all care discussing that, or there will be consequences!

Topic moved to "General Discussions"

regards
Peter

Sorry guys, I had no other words for this individual who I never met and even dont know who is he.
But I can guess who was that who asked me. XXXXXXXXXXXdeletedXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. But he never got any answer like this.
By the way, numerous people from different countries who have seen
my webpage, never asked me about my aims and goals, I got this question only once, in a very unpleasent stile..

You're not asking for a ban, do you?

Doing conservation projects, as stated on keepers/breeders websites is from public interest and should not be treated as secret or as a business of an "inner circle" in my opinion.
I'm sorry you missed the chance to introduce your projects. Such projects ain't one man shows normally, but need broad support.
If you refuse to give information about conservation efforts, you must proably live with people's impression that there are none.
Doesn't seem to me that any valuable information will come here - and to avoid further personal attacks: closed!

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