IRVINE — As a longtime detective in Japan, Lt. Michinori Jimbo has caught a lot of crooks and solved a lot of crimes, from murder and robbery to drug smuggling.
But he's not accustomed to protecting another category of victim. Elephants. Rhinos. Sea turtles. Parrots. Crocodiles.
As part of a cross-cultural training session, U.S. wildlife agents on Thursday showed Jimbo and 25 other Japanese police officers how to stem illegal trade and poaching of protected animals. Japan is the world's second-largest importer of illegal wildlife products, after the United States.
"We don't want to Japan-bash, but we want to convey to them that these are important laws, and show them the extent of this trade," said Landis McIntire, director of the Wildlife Information Network, an international consortium of educators and scientists that helped set up the seminar. "It's devastating what's going on, and we want to give the Japanese an opportunity, instead of just condemning them."
The members of the Japanese National Police Force were brought to California by UC Irvine as part of a program that teams international officers with various branches of U.S. law enforcement for nine weeks of training. Thursday's two-hour seminar was the first time that enforcement of wildlife law was incorporated into the program.
"This is a long-neglected part of law enforcement. It is not a priority for most nations," McIntire said.
Around the globe, import and export of wildlife are big business. Despite several international laws protecting endangered species and marine mammals, wildlife trade is a $4-billion enterprise annually, with about 30% believed to be illegal, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
"Some say it's second internationally only to the drug trade. And it's growing," said Herb Curry of the federal wildlife agency.
Criticized for decades for being slow to protect wildlife, the government of Japan has recently begun to reverse that trend, and was commended by environmentalists for its stands on endangered species issues at the recent international Earth Summit in Brazil.
Jimbo said one of the biggest barriers to protecting wildlife in his country is cultural. Many Japanese find wildlife products such as furs and boots irresistible, he said, and do not understand that they are illegal and causing the extinction of the animals.
