Gecko smugglers sentenced
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/gecko-smugglers-jailed-4159068
It will be a cold winter in prison for two German men who admitted travelling to New Zealand to plunder native wildlife.
56-year-old Dieter Ernst and 47-year-old Thorsten Richartz have been sentenced to four and half months in prison, for attempting to smuggle out rare geckos.
They admitted taking four jewelled geckos from two sites in Otago, and one on Banks Peninsula.
D.O.C's Robin Thomas says the illegal trade in rare New Zealand geckos does not seem to be going away.
It is estimated there are just five-thousand of the species left in the wild