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CANADIAN ANTIQUE DEALER CHARGED WITH CONSPIRING TO SMUGGLE WILDLIFE PRODUCTS LIKE IVORY, RHINOCEROS HORN

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Canadian Antique Dealer Charged with Trafficking Wildlife

Antique Company President Charged with Smuggling Wildlife Worth More Than $500,000

Canadian antiques dealer Xiao Ju Guan, aka Tony Guan, 39, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Manhattan today for conspiring to smuggle wildlife, including rhinoceros horn, elephant ivory and coral, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Sam Hirsch for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara for the Southern District of New York and Director Dan Ashe of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS).

Guan, the president and owner of an antiques business in Richmond, British Columbia, was arrested on March 29, 2014, after flying from Vancouver to New York and purchasing two endangered black rhinoceros horns from undercover special agents with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service at a storage facility in the Bronx.   After purchasing the horns in a storage pod, Guan had the undercover agents drive him and a female accomplice acting as his interpreter to a nearby express mail store where he mailed the horns to an address in Point Roberts, Washington, less than a mile from the Canadian border and 17 miles from his business.   Guan labeled the box of black rhino horns as containing “handicrafts” worth $200, even though he had just paid $45,000 for them.   Guan indicated that he had people who could drive the horns across the border and that he had done so many times before.

Guan and his co-conspirators allegedly smuggled more than $500,000 of rhino horns and sculptures made from elephant ivory and coral from various U.S. auction houses to Canada by the same method or by having packages mailed directly to Canada with false paperwork and without the required declaration or permits.   One part of the criminal scheme was to falsely describe the wildlife in order to conceal Guan’s wildlife smuggling.   In the case of a rhino horn purchased in Florida, the Customs paperwork claimed it was a “Wooden Horn” worth $200.

At the same time that Guan was being arrested in New York, wildlife enforcement officers with Environment Canada executed a search warrant at Guan’s antique business in Canada.   Environment Canada and Justice Canada are working cooperatively with U.S. investigators and prosecutors.   The Guan case is part of “Operation Crash,” a U.S. Fish & Wildlife and Justice Department crackdown on illegal trafficking in rhinoceros horns.

“Illegal wildlife trafficking is a multibillion-dollar business that must be stopped,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Hirsch.  “The Justice Department is working vigorously to uphold the laws designed to protect rhinos and elephants and other threatened species from extinction and is working alongside our international partners to bring black-market wildlife traders to justice.   We are also very grateful here for the assistance from Canadian authorities.”

“ There is an ever-expanding black market for objects made from endangered species that fuels the devastating and senseless slaughter of noble animals,” said U.S. Attorney Bharara.  “The charges levied today are designed to deal a heavy blow to those that are deliberately profiting from the trade in rare and endangered species. ”

“As this case illustrates, the United States plays a key role in the illegal wildlife trade – often as the source of, or transit country for, poached and smuggled wildlife products headed elsewhere in the world,” said Director Ashe. “This makes coordination vital with our international partners as we work together to halt the slaughter of rhinos, elephants and many other imperiled species.   We have a long history of collaboration with Environment Canada on wildlife trafficking and other issues, and we appreciate the invaluable assistance they’ve provided in this case.”

Rhinoceros are an herbivore species of prehistoric origin and one of the largest remaining mega-fauna on earth.  They have no known predators other than humans.  All species of rhinoceros are protected under U.S. and international law.  Since 1976, trade in rhinoceros horn has been regulated under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a treaty signed by over 170 countries around the world to protect fish, wildlife and plants that are or may become imperiled due to the demands of international markets.

Operation Crash is a continuing investigation by the Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), in coordination with the Department of Justice.   A “crash” is the term for a herd of rhinoceros.  Operation Crash is an ongoing effort to detect, deter and prosecute those engaged in the illegal killing of rhinoceros and the unlawful trafficking of rhinoceros horns.  The Guan case was investigated by FWS, the U.S. Attorney’s Office Complex Frauds Unit and the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section with assistance from Environment Canada’s Wildlife Enforcement Directorate.   Assistant U.S. Attorney Janis M. Echenberg and Senior Counsel Richard A. Udell of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section are in charge of the prosecution.

An indictment is an allegation based upon a finding of probable cause.   A defendant is presumed innocent until convicted.   If convicted, Guan faces up to five years in prison for the conspiracy and wildlife charges and up to ten years in prison for the crime of smuggling.   Guan could be fined up to $200,000 per count or up to twice the gross gain from the criminal conduct.

SPRINGS, CORALS AND ACIDIFICATION EFFECTS

Coral  Credit:  NOAA

FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

Natural Underwater Springs Show How Coral Reefs Respond to Ocean Acidification

Ocean acidification due to rising carbon dioxide levels reduces the density of coral skeletons, making coral reefs more vulnerable to disruption and erosion.


The results are from a study of corals growing where underwater springs naturally lower the pH of seawater. (The lower the pH, the more acidic.)

The findings are published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and are the first to show that corals are not able to fully acclimate to low pH conditions in nature.

"People have seen similar effects in laboratory experiments," said paper co-author Adina Paytan, a marine scientist at the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC).

"We looked in places where corals are exposed to low pH for their entire life span. The good news is that they don't just die. They are able to grow and calcify, but they are not producing robust structures."

With atmospheric carbon dioxide rising steadily, the oceans are absorbing more carbon dioxide, which lowers the pH of surface waters.

Ocean acidification refers to changes in seawater chemistry that move it closer to the acidic range of the pH scale, although seawater is not expected to become literally acidic.

"In our efforts to understand and predict ocean acidification and its long-term effects on marine chemistry and ecosystems, we must deal with a slow process that challenges our ability to detect change," said Don Rice, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences.

"This study shows that, with a little effort, we can find ocean sites where nature is already doing the experiments for us."

NSF funded the research through its Ocean Acidification Program, part of the agency's Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Investment.

The scientists studied coral reefs along the Caribbean coastline of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, where submarine springs lower the pH of the surrounding seawater in a natural setting.

The effect is similar to the widespread ocean acidification that's occurring as the oceans absorb increasing amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Led by first author Elizabeth Crook of UCSC, the researchers deployed instruments to monitor seawater chemistry around the springs and removed skeletal cores from colonies of Porites astreoides, an important Caribbean reef-building coral.

They performed CT scans of the cores in the lab of co-author Anne Cohen at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass., to measure densities and determine annual calcification rates.

The results show that coral calcification rates decrease significantly along a natural gradient in seawater pH.

Ocean acidification lowers the concentration of carbonate ions in seawater, making it more difficult for corals to build their calcium carbonate skeletons.

"Carbonate ions are the building blocks corals need to grow skeletons," said Paytan.

"When the pH is lower, corals have to use more energy to accumulate these carbonate building blocks internally. As a result, the calcification rate is lower and they lay down less dense skeletons."

The reduced density of the coral skeletons makes them more vulnerable to mechanical erosion during storms, to organisms that bore into corals and to parrotfish, which sometimes feed on corals.

This could lead to a weakening of the reef framework and degradation of the coral reef ecosystem.

"There are likely to be major shifts in reef species and some loss of coral cover, but if ocean acidification is the only factor there won't be total destruction," Paytan said.

"We need to protect corals from other stressors, such as pollution and overfishing. If we can control those, the impact of ocean acidification might not be as bad."

In addition to Crook, Cohen and Paytan, co-authors of the paper include Mario Rebolledo-Vieyra and Laura Hernandez of the Centro de Investigacion Cientifica de Yucatan.

The research was also funded by UC-MEXUS.

-NSF-