This photograph taken on september 21, 2023 shows skulls of primates and other animal skulls seized from packages at the Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport in the Paris suburb of Roissy. (AFP)
Customs officials at the main Paris airport have seized hundreds of skulls from protected monkey species.
The skulls and those of other animals were mostly in packages which had arrived from Cameroon, customs at Charles de Gaulle airport said on Thursday.
Recipients were due to be collectors as well as hunting clubs in the U.S., which use the skulls as gifts or prizes. Some of the packages also contained whole animal specimens or forearms with hands.
None of the consignments had the necessary permit and officials have been making near daily discoveries at France's largest airport.
Besides the monkeys, other species such as otters, large cats, monitor lizards and birds of prey were also smuggled, customs officials said.
More than 700 monkey and animal skulls seized between May and December 2022 were handed over by customs on Thursday to the Natural History Museum in Aix-en-Provence, which intends to examine and also exhibit them.
"I am stunned to think that our closest relatives, apes and great apes, are being decimated and rainforests robbed of their endangered biodiversity for a business that is as stupid as it is outrageous," said the museum's ape expert, Professor Sabrina Krief.
