Senegal police arrested an international bird trafficker

September 22nd, 2015 | by LubosTomiska

Conservation projects

After more than 12 months Senegal police arrested a very important international bird trafficker, Aziz Sall, who was responsible for smuggling of several hundreds of thousands of African Grey Parrots. The association EAGLE Network informed about that on their facebook page.

Most of parrots were transported under terrible conditions. Very often, smugglers wrapped them to paper or stuff them into the plastic bottle. It’s been found out that over 50% of all smuggled parrots haven’t survived long trips to Europe, America or Middle East. Sall was dealing with endangered animal species for the last 10 years. Five more smugglers were arrested with him during the house search. At that moment they were trying to sell Timneh Grey Parrots with CITES permits originated from Mali. The problem is that there is no living population of this species in Mali so obviously they forged the papers.

This group of smugglers wasn’t any amateurs. They have used sofisticated methods to transport the birds and were connected with traders all over the world. During the house search great amount of birds was confiscated including 109 Timneh Grey parrots (Psittacus timneh) , 600 Rose-ringed parakeets (Psittacula krameri) and 80 Senegal parrots (Poicephalus senegalus). Smugglers admitted that they cooperated with traders in Spain, USA, Turkey, Singapore, Libya, Hong Kong and many other countries…

After every consfiscation officers and police have to find a new place for the parrots so they can recover after a long stay in poor conditions. Fortunately, World Parrot Trust cooperates with several veterinaries who helped a lot with the treatment. Hopefully, all the birds will be released back to the wild as soon as they recover.

Title photo: (c) Eagle Network fb page

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