A 29-year-old Vietnamese restaurant owner who admitted possessing three tortoises stolen from Perth Zoo has been fined $7000, with the magistrate saying it's bizarre he only gave one back after realising they were critically endangered.
Two Madagascan radiated tortoises were pinched from the zoo in June and September 2011, and a third in February 2016.
That reptile was returned about a week later, but the other two were only discovered two months ago when officers attended Mai Huy Vu Vo's Girrawheen home responding to a burglary.
According to the police prosecutor at Joondalup Magistrates Court on Friday, Vo claimed he didn't know the animals were stolen and bought the pair from the friend of a drug dealer.
He claimed he bought the third tortoise from man at a bus stop for $200 but days later saw a news article about it being pilfered from the zoo, so he brought it to police.
The magistrate said she accepted Vo didn't steal the tortoises and did the right thing in 2016 when he returned one of them, but it was "incomprehensible" he hung onto the other two.
"That makes it even more bizarre," she said.
While the zoo previously told reporters that the pair reunited with their relieved keepers in September had some shell injuries, the court heard Vo, an animal lover who keeps fish, had taken good care of them.
He had kept them as pets and didn't plan to sell them on the black market, the court heard.
While he didn't initially believe they were rare and exotic, he suspected they may have been wildlife, which are prohibited from being kept domestically.
The magistrate said keeping two when there were only 400 of the species remaining in the world was a "very, very serious brain snap" and deprived the community of them for a considerable period of time.
Vo's lawyer said his client had a poor grasp of English and limited education, and was somewhat socially isolated from people given he worked in the kitchen while his wife tended front of house at their restaurant.
He was also a bit naive, which partly explained why he'd got into the situation, the lawyer said.
Vo was ordered to pay $502 in court costs.
Australian Associated Press
