“Long night of museums” attracts 2000 in Hungary
Budapest, Hungary, 28th June 2011—More than 2000 visitors attended a “long night of museums” event organized by the Hungarian Customs Museum last Friday to raise awareness about wildlife trade issues in general and CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) in particular.
TRAFFIC was invited to make a presentation about wildlife trade and there was a demonstration by the Hungarian Customs Dog Training School of the use of sniffer dogs to detect wildlife contraband.
The School recently started a pilot project training dogs to find wildlife goods, and TRAFFIC is currently working closely with WWF-Hungary to raise funds for a national wildlife detector dog programme.
“The potential of sniffer dogs in assisting enforcement actions against wildlife trafficking is immense, and the demonstration tonight shows just what can be achieved by the dogs after only a month’s training,” said Kecse-Nagy Katalin, TRAFFIC Europe’s Programme Officer based in Budapest.
Other presentations made during the evening included talks by the CITES Management Authority in Hungary, Customs officers, and by the Head of a CITES animal rescue centre.
The event was part of a series organized by members of the International Association of Customs Museums, which this year is focusing on CITES.
