A businessman is being probed for owning a private taxidermy collection in the eastern Valencia region by Spain’s Civil Guard, reports said citing the officials on Sunday.
The collection includes over 1,000 stuffed animals, which includes more than 400 from protected species. And at least one specimen is of a North African oryx, which is already extinct.
In a statement, Civil Guard said that on the black market, the collection could be worth 29 million euros (USD31.5 million).
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The owner could be charged with trafficking and other crimes against the environment, it added.
The seizure seems to be the largest of protected stuffed specimens ever found, it said.
The stuffed animals were found in two warehouses by investigating agents. These facilities, which extended over 50,000 square metres, were on the outskirts of Bétera. It is a small town located north of the eastern coastal city of Valencia.
In total, 1,090 stuffed animals were found. Around 405 of these belonged to specimens, which are protected by the CITES convention on wildlife protection.
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The stuffed specimens of lion, leopard, lynx, cheetah, snow panther, polar bear and white rhinoceros, among others, were found by the agents.
It included scimitar oryx or Sahara oryx, which has been declared extinct in the wild by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2000.
Two more species, which are nearly extinct, the addax or white antelope and the Bengal tiger, were also found.
(With inputs from agencies)
