The protection unit of Tehran Province’s office of the Department of Environment is set to exercise stricter control over animal markets in Tehran in cooperation with Tehran Municipality.
The move is to bolster DOE’s crackdown on illegal wildlife trade, ILNA reported.
Naqi Mirzakarimi, the head of protection unit, said traders’ unawareness of the ban on trading in certain animal was a common problem for which training courses were held to familiarize violators with the regulations.
“Following the instructions, if sellers are found dealing with forbidden species by our monitoring teams, they will be banned from work and their stalls will be shut down,” he said.
“No stalls will be rented out to them again based on agreements with the municipality.”
It was unclear whether the offenders would be jailed or fined.
The inspectors will patrol the markets constantly to report offences both in licensed booths and by vendors outside the market.
The official hoped that with these measures and Tehran Municipality’s cooperation, the DOE will be able to end illegal wildlife trade in Tehran’s animal markets within one or two months.
The DOE has also taken steps to control the illegal sales of animals online.
“We have filed complaints against trading websites and are pursuing the cases through Iran’s Cyber Police,” he said.
Mirzakarimi noted that the protection unit’s staff also resorts to other strategies to identify the offenders, such as approaching them as buyers.
“We recently arrested a man who intended to sell a wolf in Tehran,” he said.
