Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, June 17
A multi-agency raid by several agencies, including the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau and the city police, at Mumbai’s Crawford Market last weekend has blown the lid off large-scale “illegal” breeding of exotic birds across the country.
Saturday’s raid at the civic-run Mahatma Phule (Crawford) market and other places by a joint team comprising personnel from different agencies led to the seizure of several exotic birds such as sulphur-crested cockatoos, African and Burmese parrots, galah cockatoos, a flamingo, a pair of java sparrows, foreign species of ducks and love birds. “The birds were kept in 21 cages that were meant for sale to well-heeled customers,” a police official said.
Interrogation of some of those arrested has revealed that many birds have been sourced from breeders around the country. “We have also received information that some exotic species of birds are being bred in captivity in farmhouses,” an official from the bureau said.
Sources in the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau said exotic birds are smuggled via sea or air into Mumbai and people are willing to pay tens of thousands of rupees for them.
from The Tribune http://bit.ly/2FjpO5Q
via Today’s News Headlines
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