Yahoo – AFP,
6 May 2015
Indonesian
police say 21 yellow-crested cockatoos and one green parrot
were jammed inside
plastic water bottles, as an alleged wildlife smuggler
arrived in Surabaya, on
May 4, 2015 (AFP Photo)
|
Surabaya
(Indonesia) (AFP) - Indonesian police have arrested a suspected wildlife
smuggler after discovering nearly two dozen rare live birds, mostly
yellow-crested cockatoos, jammed inside plastic water bottles in his luggage.
The
37-year-old man was stopped by police on Monday as he alighted from a passenger
ship in Surabaya, a city on the main island of Java.
Photographs
show the birds, with distinctive yellow plumage, peering out of the bottles
after being found by officers. The bottoms of the bottles had been cut off to
squeeze the birds inside.
Police and
customs officials hold rare
Indonesian yellow-crested cockatoos, j
ammed inside
plastic water bottles,
confiscated from an alleged wildlife
smuggler, on May 4,
2015 (AFP Photo)
|
"We
found 21 yellow-crested cockatoos and one green parrot," he said.
"All
the birds were found inside water bottles, which were packed in a crate."
The birds
have since been sent to Indonesia's natural resources conservation office,
which deals with wildlife-trafficking cases.
Sulaiman
said the man -- whose identity was not disclosed in line with normal criminal
procedure in Indonesia -- had admitted carrying two birds for a friend but
claimed to know nothing about the other animals.
If found
guilty of smuggling, the man, from near Surabaya, could face up to five years
in prison.
Yellow-crested
cockatoos are native to Indonesia and neighbouring East Timor and considered
critically endangered, according to the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature.
They are
different to the larger and more common sulphur-crested cockatoo which is mostly
found in Australia and New Guinea.
1 comment:
How cruel, and wouldn't these birds have likely suffocated in a closed suitcase?
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