The Japanese children's pastime of catching stag beetles during the sultry summer months appears to be turning into outright "beetlemania," given the reported surge in overseas poaching of the six-legged black diamonds for sale in Japan.
Two Japanese men were arrested Aug. 1 at Nepal's Tribhuvan International Airport shortly before boarding a flight for Osaka, on suspicion of attempting to smuggle 271 pairs of indigenous stag beetles out of the country.
Also in the Himalayan kingdom last year, forest rangers in southern Nepal caught a Japanese Web designer and his two Nepalese guides red-handed bagging stag beetles without permits. Violations involving stag beetles have also been reported in Taiwan, India and other countries.