A Cambodia based YouTuber and her husband have been arrested as they filmed of skinning and cooking endangered animals in a hope for earning some money from YouTube account.
The videos sparked outrage on social media after Ah-Lin-Tuch and her husband Phoun Raty posted videos of cooking animals such as fishing cat, lizard, shark ray, snake, stingray.
In the videos, a few of which were removed later, she was seen grilling the killed animals using a campfire in a jungle in Phnom Penh.
The duo was tracked and arrested later by the country's Ministry of Environment.on Thursday, May 10 while they admitted and apologized for "destroying" the wildlife.
The head of the Environment Ministry's General Directorate for Administration of Nature Conservation and Protection Chea Sam Arng said, "We are now in the process of taking legal action against them while the working group is preparing a report on the matter.
"The animals that were cooked were mostly not on the endangered list, but are protected. Only one species was in danger of extinction."
Following this, the couple was forced to remove the clips from YouTube. They further claimed of buying the animals from a local market.
According to multiple reports, the fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) belonged to the endangered species while the lizard, the large heron and other species of birds are protected.
The investigation into the matter is still on to find out whether the animals were killed or purchased from the local market (illegal market) as the couple claimed.
Ah Lin was quoted saying, "I don't even know what kind of animals or birds we used or their impact on wildlife conservation.
"I bought the wildlife at Preak Phnov and we started filming our videos since December. Now I have already admitted my mistake."
You can watch one of the videos below.
[WARNING: THE BELOW VIDEO CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES, WHICH MIGHT BE DISTURBING TO SOME VIEWERS.]
