Mimika regional police have foiled an attempt to smuggle more than ten thousand pig-nose turtles from the town of Timika in Indonesia's province of Papua.
According to the Antara news agency, the Mimika Police Chief Adjunct Senior Commissioner, Mochammad Sagi, said the confiscated turtles were due to be released into the Wania River last week.
In 2009, the Papua Natural Resources Conservation Centre released over 10,000 pig-nosed turtles, a species endemic to the province, into the Otakwa River in the Lorentz National Park.
They had been poached from the East Mimika district.
The turtles are a protected species
