National Police officers and Environment Ministry officials last Friday caught two poachers transporting 62 birds in the central Pacific district of Montes de Oro, in Costa Rica's Puntarenas province.
With just over two weeks left of the year, reports of animal abuse have already surpassed by 15 percent those recorded last year, the National Animal Health Service (SENASA) reported Friday.
A Cartago court sentenced a man for illegally breeding dogs in a puppy mill. Most of the dogs were kept inside stacked cages or hanging crates for years.
Thousands of parrots, monkeys, iguanas, toucans, turtles and other rain forest animals are kept as exotic pets in Costa Rica, a practice putting some species at risk, according to experts.
Officials of the National System of Conservation Areas last weekend conducted inspections in several protected areas in the northwestern province of Guanacaste, resulting in the arrest of six hunters inside Palo Verde National Park, the agency reported Thursday.
Prosecutors in the southern Pacific canton of Buenos Aires, in the province of Puntarenas, are investigating a local man for allegedly killing a Costa Rican cougar (Puma concolor costaricensis), an endangered species in the country.
