Poaching illegal in Spain.

It's in Spanish, to read it with google translate

Denuncian una red de tráfico ilegal con una salamandra exclusiva de Piloña y en extinción - La Nueva España - Diario Independiente de Asturias

Seprona interviene a un vecino de Bercero (Valladolid) tritones jaspeados, especie de CyL que vendía en la red - 20minutos.es - El medio social

Intervenido en A Coruña un ejemplar de tritón que se vendía por Internet

Here is a short abstract of the articles.
In the first one, an international net of poachers that dealt with S.s.alfredschmidti has been discovered and denounced by the goverment of Asturias. The animals were illegally captured and sold internationally, even as far as Japan. It also insists in that the goverment didn´t authorize any legal collections and that the subspecies is considered to be in danger of extinction.
Special conservation meassures need to be taken according to the UICN.

The second articles deals with the detention of a neighbour of Valladolid that offered WC T.marmoratus online at the price of 10 euros each. The animals had been collected from an out of use pool in his property and kept in an aquarium until they were sold. The SEPRONA (a spanish official organization that deals with these stuff) aprehended the man by tracking the advertisement, and they found he had no documents or authorization to keep the species.

The third article is basically the exact same as the second one except it takes place in Galicia.


It´s great to see that the SEPRONA does its job every now and then. In recent years there have been a few big busts. I remember one where two men were detained for poaching over 150 amphibians and reptiles in Spain and shipping them to England. They literally took everything they saw, including species with very little commercial value like B.bufo, P.perezi or N.maura. They kept them in tiny containers in the truck of the car...

Thanks for posting the details, Azhael!