VietNamNet Bridge - Police and forest rangers in Ho Chi Minh City have taken three yellow-cheeked gibbons to a wildlife sanctuary in Cu Chi District after finding the rare and protected primates at a factory in Binh Tan District.
For its sins, Nhan Hoa Ltd. in Tan Tao Industrial Zone was fined VND5.4 million (barely US$300), according to Nguyen Chuong, deputy director of the Wildlife Rescue Center in Cu Chi.
The newcomers bring to five the number of yellow-cheeked gibbons taken to the center in less than a month, Chuong said.
The other two were found at the District 6 house of one Huynh Van Nam, who handed over the gibbons without fuss after denying any knowledge of a ban on keeping protected wildlife.
One of the two has since died, though why is not yet known.
The yellow-cheeked gibbon (Nomascus gabriellae) was classified as in danger of extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources in 2000.
A report by the Wildlife Conservation Society last year counted 2,500 yellow-cheeked crested gibbons in Cambodia’s Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area, an estimate that represents the largest known population of the species in the world.
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