Antiques dealer fined $10,000 over more than 700 illegally held native animals
A 74-year-old Victorian antiques store owner, Glenn Richard Rollo, has been fined $10,000 by a court after pleading guilty to 13 charges. The charges relate to more than 700 native animals that had been illegally taxidermied, meaning preserved by stuffing and mounting, and frozen, and that were seized from his property.
The 13 charges included selling and possessing protected and threatened wildlife, and failing to provide treatment to a sick animal. Rollo appeared before the Kyneton local court on Tuesday, where magistrate Patrick Southey, who presides over cases in courts of this level, heard the case.
The conservation regulator searched his store and home under search warrants in April last year, as part of a crackdown on the illegal wildlife trade. A four-day operation by the regulator uncovered the animals across the home and the antiques business in Kyneton, according to reporting by the Sydney Morning Herald.
Investigators found 14 freezers containing animals on the property. Among the dead animals were 78 emus, 42 brushtail possums and 26 echidnas, a spiny, egg-laying mammal native to Australia. The remains of threatened species included the barking owl, the diamond python and the Murray River short-necked turtle.
Fifteen live reptiles were also found in enclosures on the property. They included North American red-eared slider turtles and corn snakes. Six of the live reptiles were not being kept to required animal welfare standards, according to the regulator.
Victoria's Wildlife Act 1975 prohibits taking native animals without approval. Trading in dead animals requires a commercial or private wildlife licence, and anyone in Victoria who wants to taxidermy an animal must obtain a licence from the conservation regulator. Restrictions on selling and possessing threatened and protected species apply to both living and dead animals. Rollo did not have a licence or authorisation under the state's wildlife laws to obtain or possess the animals, according to the Guardian's report of the case.
