Two Belgian teenagers found with 5,000 ants in Kenya given $7,700 fine or 1-year prison sentence

NAIROBI – Two Belgian teenagers recovered with 5,000 ants successful Kenya were fined $7,700 oregon the enactment to service 12 months successful situation — the maximum punishment for the discourtesy — for violating wildlife conservation laws.

The teenagers were recovered with the ants, which authorities said were destined for European and Asian markets successful an emerging inclination of trafficking lesser-known wildlife species.

Belgian nationals Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, some 19 years old, were arrested connected April 5 with 5,000 ants astatine a impermanent house. They were charged connected April 15.

Magistrate Njeri Thuku, sitting astatine the tribunal successful Kenya’s main airdrome connected Wednesday, said successful her ruling that contempt the teenagers telling the tribunal they were naïve and collecting the ants arsenic a hobby, the peculiar taxon of ants they collected is invaluable and they had thousands of them — not conscionable a few.

The Kenya Wildlife Service had said the teenagers were progressive successful trafficking the ants to markets successful Europe and Asia, and that the taxon included messor cephalotes, a distinctive, ample and red-colored harvester ant autochthonal to East Africa.

The amerciable export of the ants “not lone undermines Kenya’s sovereign rights implicit its biodiversity but besides deprives section communities and probe institutions of imaginable ecological and economical benefits,” KWS said successful a statement.

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