Like locking 140 children in a small room for three months. That’s how World Parrot Trust Africa director Dr Steve Boyes describes the plight of a company of wild-caught African Grey parrots, being held in state quarantine in Kempton Park, their lives in limbo.
“These are highly intelligent birds,” says Boyes of the birds smuggled into South Africa from the Democratic Republic of Congo in April.
“What’s happening to them is extremely cruel. They’re being broken and becoming less active. They’re experiencing a cold they have never experienced in their lives – the temperature of their natural habitat doesn’t go under 20C.
In April, the original consignment of 161 wild-caught African Greys were trafficked into South Africa from Mozambique, but were confiscated by a military patrol on the Mpumalanga border.
The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Department requested that Boyes’s trust take “ownership” of the birds and find a suitable release facility. The trust has secured their release into the tropical forests of Uganda or Rwanda, and the necessary permits from Gauteng conservation officials.
But Willem Grobler, a Limpopo parrot breeder, is set for a legal battle as he maintains the birds are his and were stolen from him in Mozambique. The Department of Water and Environmental Affairs is stalling issuing Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species export permits that would “allow us to send the parrots back to the tropical forests where they belong”, said Boyes.
“We’re hearing nothing. They are holding this back. I don’t know how the department can ignore this animal welfare situation that is evolving.” He says South Africa is a massive conduit for the trade in endangered species like African Greys from around the globe. “The US, Australia and Europe have shut down the trade in wild-caught birds. This is what we should do but we’re very pro-trade.”
But while the smuggled African Greys are stressed in their captive conditions, conservationists and veterinary staff are doing all they can to keep them alive and in good health. “We’ve changed their diet and are treating them with vitamins, cod liver oil and electrolytes to reduce their stress. We’re even getting branches to stuff in their cages so they’ve got something wild and natural to chew on. That’s all we can do without having any contact with them. It’s sad these very intelligent birds are suffering,” said Boyes.
Lauraine Wilson, a Pretoria-based parrot breeder, has also been touched by their ordeal. She and her husband went to the quarantine station twice this week and plan to continue to deliver fresh fruit and vegetables and cooked food.
“Our government seems to be doing absolutely nothing. It’s soul-destroying. We have to stop the trade in wild-caught African Greys.
“There are enough of these birds in captivity to sustain us for the next millennium. What nobody understands is that for the 100 that they’ve got into the country here, a further 300 probably died on the way.” - Saturday Star