The People’s Procuracy of Chu Pah District in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai has decided to prosecute two men for illegally transporting a large volume, both dead and alive, of black-shanked douc langurs, a critically endangered species.  Accordingly, Nong Van Thu, 27, and Nguyen Duc Thien, 28, both of Dak Nong Province, will be jailed for three months and prosecuted for “violating regulations on conservation of rare and precious wildlife,” local police said Monday. Earlier, on March 25, police caught Thu and Thien carrying 82 skeletons of black-shanked douc langurs weighing 150.5 kg and 26 live black-shanked douc langurs weighing 202.8 kg in a truck in the district’s Phu Hoa Town. The men were immediately detained after failing to provide police with any documents about the origin of the skeletons as well as the live animals. Douc langurs are listed in Vietnam’s Red Book of Endangered Species, so any actions that harm them are banned.

In August 2012, police and forestry protection officers in another Central Highlands province, Kon Tum,  found the body of a 7-kg douc langur, one of the endangered species, in a bag left by a suspect who had run away before being examined.

A month earlier, in July 2012, graphic images depicting the brutal slayings of two endangered black-shanked douc langurs shocked Internet users. Many people have expressed their outrage at the appalling acts of cruelty, as well as shown deep compassion for the poor animals in thousands of comments. In January 2011 Hanoi police seized 12 dried bodies of the black-shanked douc langurs from a passenger bus coming from Dak Lak, another province in the Central Highlands, which comprises five provinces: Kon Tum, Gia Lai, Dak Lak, Dak Nong and Lam Dong.