Monday, April 16, 2012

Dutch national remanded for stealing endemic fauna species from Sinharaja

By Ravi Ladduwahetty

Wijnand Roelos Bavend, a 58-year-old Dutch national, has been remanded in the Ratnapura prison on Saturday for being in the possession of 19 species of grasshoppers, millipedes, rare cockroaches and other endemic species of fauna collected from the Sinharaja reserve.

Investigations by the Forest Department authorities have revealed that there had been 109 test tubes, 114 small bottles, seven syringes, 16 needles, and three bottles of bees honey found in the Dutch national’s hotel room at Bird’s Paradise Hotel, Kalawana.

The Dutch man who was born on February 6, 1954 and named as a Scientist, according to his passport details, had visited the Sinharaja Forest area and checked into the hotel on Thursday. Soon suspicion arose among the tour guides as he did not enter the park, but had been roaming inside the villages and the neighbouring areas. This was a cause for concern for the guides as any visitor, especially foreigners who do not enter the park deprive them of their guide fee!, Forest Department’s Sinharaja Forest Range Officer Vijayanath Upul told The Island yesterday.

It all happened on Saturday while he was within the Reserve with the guides who showed him the locations, while he kept his distance from inside the park. Suddenly one of the guides who had accompanied him inside the forest had seen him putting some of the stolen species in to a test tube and it was then that the guides alerted the other Range officers of the Department and in turn the Wild Life authorities.

The suspect, after he was caught had told that the Sri Lankan scientists had not been capable of discovering these exotic species to which the Forest Department authorities had responded by saying that those discoveries would be made in due course! The entire consignment of the stolen fauna species had been sent to the Dehiwela Zoological Gardens for the determination of their scientific names. He has also told the authorities that he had visited Sri Lanka twice before for the same purpose on December 17, 2010 and August 1, 2011, but this was the first time that he had been caught!

He was subsequently taken to the Ratnapura Magistrate, at his bungalow, who ordered the remanding of the suspect as the courts were on vacation due to the Sinhala and Tamil New Year. He is expected to be produced in courts today with the police B report.

Suspect had wanted the services of an Attorney and also wanted to contact the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Colombo which had been promised by both the Forest Department and Wild Life authorities.

http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=49652

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