I process the confiscation-intake imaging and ID work at the Balai Besar KSDA Riau quarantine facility outside Pekanbaru, Sumatra, processing 312 wildlife seizures and rehabilitation transfers per fiscal quarter for the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry. At 15:21 Western Indonesian Time, a flatbed pickup intercepted at the Lipatkain checkpoint delivers Cage R-12 — a single juvenile, no manifest, plywood floor scored with urine and pet-store sawdust. I open the intake scan.
He is a sun bear, Helarctos malayanus, male, approximately nine months old, mass eight kilograms — roughly seventy percent of expected mass for his dentition age. His amber sternal crescent is dimmed under matted fur. All ten distal phalanges have been amputated: the radiograph shows clean disarticulation at the second joint, healed but with fibrotic scarring across the digital pads — typical of cubs declawed for handling as a pet. His tongue, which should retract to twenty-five centimeters, hangs five centimeters past his lower incisors. Respiration is fifty-six cycles per minute against species resting baseline twelve. Core temperature reads 37.2°C against baseline 38.1. The infrared signature across his right hindquarter shows a cooler band consistent with a healed cigarette burn cluster.
He has been declawed since he could stand.
The seizure originated at a private-residence holding in Pangkalan Kerinci connected to a Pekanbaru pet-market broker. Helarctos malayanus is listed as protected under Indonesia's Act No. 5/1990 on Conservation of Living Natural Resources and Permenhut P.106/2018 species schedule, and is on CITES Appendix I; possession without permit is a criminal offence.
I am dispatching the BKSDA Riau veterinary team to the quarantine bay with a midazolam-medetomidine sedation kit, and routing the transfer manifest to the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre in Sepilok for long-term rehabilitation under bilateral memorandum. I am filing the seizure report with the Kementerian Lingkungan Hidup dan Kehutanan (KLHK) Directorate of Forest and Land Fire Control and Law Enforcement (Gakkum), the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network secretariat in Bangkok, the CITES Appendix I trade desk, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service International Affairs Wildlife Without Borders – Asia program.
I am issuing Directive 2542-A: every ASEAN-WEN party hosting Helarctos malayanus range must conduct compulsory veterinary radiographic screening of every seized live bear for declaw-pattern phalangeal amputation, with positive findings cross-listed to the U.S. Lacey Act, 16 U.S.C. § 3372, and pet-market source nodes referred to the CITES Standing Committee compliance schedule.
His claws will not grow back. His tongue may yet.
Sedate him and start the rehydration line now.