"Rosie" - African Grey Parrot, Photo: Devlon Duthie
Five hundred parrots saved from illegal wildlife traders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were headed for South Africa, the World Parrot Trust (WPT) said on Monday.
The trust’s Africa Administrator Dr Steve Boyes said many illegal birds and monkeys from DRC forests end up in South Africa. He said the African Grey parrots were seized from traders in November 2010 and were taken to a sanctuary.
He said armed soldiers raided the sanctuary in December, took the wild parrots and put them into quarantine facilities.
“We do believe that… the 500 African Greys seized… from our sanctuary are among the ones in the quarantine facility in Kinshasa waiting to come over,” he said. “They are in the same pipeline as the 730 African Greys that died on the flight to Durban.”
Bird trader Gideon Fourie said there was no way to tell whether the 500 he ordered were the same birds that were removed from the sanctuary. He added that imports were legal, but admitted he uses wild birds to lay eggs to meet domestic demand for pets.