Honey bear. Flickr/law_keven
Police in Malaysia arrested a 25-year-old woman after discovering a slow loris, a leopard cat and a baby honey bear in her high-rise condo, the Associated Press reported. Now she's in hot water thanks to the trio of exotic animals.
Slow lorises are wide-eyed, woolly primates related to lemurs. Leopard cats aren't true leopards, but small, spotted wild felines. Honey bears, also known as sun bears, are the smallest members of the bear family at about 4 feet tall, according to Wikipedia. All three species are native to the tropical forests of southeast Asia, and slow lorises and honey bears are both listed as "threatened" on the endangered species list.
That's bad news for the arrested woman, who claimed her male cousin was responsible for the animals. In Malaysia, keeping endangered wildlife without a permit can result in fines and up to two years in jail, the AP reported. Investigators believe the animals were bought from indigenous tribes in southern Malaysia and were being kept in the condo as pets. Both the woman and her cousin could be charged.
According to the Associated Press, leopard cats and slow lorises can bring in 500 ringgit (about $147) each on the black market, while a baby honey bear could sell for ten times that amount. Fortunately for this trio of unlikely roommates, wildlife officials plan to release them back into the wild or turn them over to a zoo.
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