Ammon News - AMMAN Jordan Customs Department has collected the sum of JD20,300 in fines on four smuggled cheetah cubs, Director General of Jordan Customs Department Major General Ghalib Sarayrah said.

Sarayrah told Petra that customs officers at Al Emari border post aborted the attempt to smuggle in the four cubs from Saudi Arabia to Syria via Jordan.

He added that the cubs were sent to the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature.

In two separate incidents over the weekend, inspection teams at Al Omari border crossing discovered cheetah and lion cubs kept in “inhumane conditions”, according to the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN).

On Friday, four lion cubs confined in two small cages were discovered in a car headed for Saudi Arabia. The following day, four cheetah cubs in two small straw baskets were found in a car from Saudi Arabia destined for Syria, said Mahdi Qatramiz, head of the RSCN’s conservation and hunting regulation section, Jordan Times reported.

The cheetahs are listed under the first appendix of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and thus are not allowed to be hunted or traded for any commercial purposes.

The convention is an international agreement between governments which aims to ensure that the international trade in wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. Petra


**Photo courtesy of RSCN)