Police and forestry protection officers in Kon Tum Province has found the body of a douc langur, one of the endangered species, in a bag left by a suspect who had run away before being examined.

>> Soldier who tortured rare monkeys sacked>> Man uploading photos of slaying monkeys identified >> Police probe into cruel killing of rare monkeys>> Photos show cruel killing of endangered monkeys The suspected threw the bag behind after being stopped by these officers in Sa Thay District for examination. The dead animal, with white cheeks, weighed about 7 kg. The same day, workers at the Dak Lak Rubber Company found a young live douc lagur, also white-cheeked. They then captured the young monkey and handed it over to the district forestry protection office. Douc langurs are listed in Vietnam’s Red Book of Endangered Species, so any actions that harm them are banned.

Police are investigating to track down the killer of the white-cheeked douc langur. The killing came more than a month after two other endangered douc langurs were killed in Quang Nam Province by a group of young men dressed in military uniform in mid-July. The images of the killing were shown on Facebook, causing great shocks to the public. Concerned agencies launched an investigation and found out that Nguyen Van Quang, a soldier, had uploaded the photos of the brutal slaying on Facebook.

Quang was later sacked from the military while two other servicemen received “warnings” for their involvement in torturing the monkeys.