In the Kyiv region, animal rights activists, under the guise of potential buyers, rescued a red-listed lynx that black traders were selling on the OLX platform for $4,000.
During the transfer of the animal, the police intervened and the lynx was sent to a place of temporary detention, animal rights activist from the public organization URSA Yaroslava Koba reports on Facebook.
She said that the black traders assured that the animals were kept in good conditions, their diet was monitored and they had all the necessary documents. However, they asked not to "light" the lynx on social networks in order to avoid problems with "abnormal greens", that is, animal rights activists.
"We made phone calls for a long time, tried to figure out a scheme to remove all red book features from the data of black traders, and realized that for the time being we need to start small. To save one little lynx," Koba wrote.
The animal rights activist added that traders act very carefully and through third parties, without revealing their location. And the sale itself was supposed to take place on neutral territory – in the parking lot of one of the shopping centers.
"I didn't believe until the end that he would bring a real lynx. I thought it was a big cat or something like that, but it's not possible for a person to sell a red-book lynx like that through OLX! It turns out to be possible," she said.
Koba emphasized that the seller did not have any documents for the animal, but assured that he would "make" them. The frightened lynx was brought in an ordinary carrier. She was removed by law enforcement officers and transferred to a place of temporary detention.
"The lynx has a wonderful future in the conditions that a wild animal deserves," the animal rights activist said, adding that the animal became ill at the shelter. – Rysentko vomited some kind of porridge and inexplicable clots yesterday, this indicates that the baby was definitely not fed meat. There will be a doctor today."
Koba noted that as of 2021, there were 500 lynxes living in Ukraine, and with the start of a full-scale war, their number has decreased even more.
She emphasized that back in 2018, OLX stated that the sale of Red Book animals on the platform is strictly prohibited.
"I will say about the effectiveness of URSA's activities – today several more ads for the sale of rice on OLX, which we saw yesterday – were deleted. Did the sellers themselves do it because they were scared, or maybe OLX started to itch? I do not know. I don't know what should be in the mind of a person who wants to have a wild animal at home?" said the animal rights activist.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that zoo activists accused the police of ignoring the facts of cruel treatment of animals in the Odesa dolphinarium "Nemo", where in April bloggers held a photo shoot with the animals in a hotel room.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, a family was discovered in Odesa that keeps a male cougar in the house.
