A court in Kenya has sentenced four men to one year in prison or to pay a fine of $7,700 each, for trying to smuggle thousands of live queen ants out of the country.
Authorities said the giant insects were destined for collectors in Europe and Asia in what is seen as an emerging trend of trafficking lesser-known wildlife species.
Two of the men are Belgian teenagers who told the court they were collecting them as a hobby and did not think it was illegal.
Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, both 19-years-old, were arrested on 5 April with 5,000 ants in their possession at a guest house in Nakuru county, which is home to various national parks.
Magistrate Njeri Thuku said in her ruling on Wednesday that despite them telling the court they had been naïve and that it was a hobby, the particular species of ants they collected is valuable and they had thousands of them, not just a few.
The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said the species they held included a distinctive, large and red-coloured harvester ant native to East Africa.
The teenagers’ lawyer, Halima Nyakinyua, described the sentencing as “fair” and said her clients would not appeal.
“When the statutes prescribe a specific minimum amount, the court cannot go lower than that. So, even if we went to the court of appeal, the court is not going to revise that,” she said.
The illegal export of the ants “not only undermines Kenya’s sovereign rights over its biodiversity but also deprives local communities and research institutions of potential ecological and economic benefits,” KWS said in a statement.
In a separate but related case, a Vietnamese national and a Kenyan were given the same sentence after they were found with 400 ants.
Duh Hung Nguyen told the court that he was sent to pick up the ants, while Kenyan Dennis Ng’ang’a, said he didn’t know it was illegal because ants are sold and eaten locally.
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