A wildlife officer is suspected of stealing more than 1,500 pounds (700 kilograms) of smuggled elephant tusks seized last year, an embarrassing setback for the country's anti-poaching efforts, an official said Wednesday. The ivory worth $65,000 was part of a 8,800-pound (4,000-kilogram) shipment of tusks that was impounded at Manila airport in July and turned over for disposal to the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau, said Theresa Mundita, the agency's director. She said the theft of nearly a fifth of the stored tusks was discovered while inventory was being taken on a warehouse Friday. Seals on some of the boxes were broken and some of the original tusks were replaced by replicas made of PVC pipes covered with plaster, she said. Wildlife authorities filed administrative charges against a park supervisor, Mundita said. “This is really embarrassing because we should be among the proactive countries protecting internationally important species,” Mundita said. “It is already a shame that the tusks are smuggled here and the Philippines is an end-market, where the tusks are processed and finished products like carvings are exported from here.”
