Some of the African grey parrots which were rescued from a smuggler at the Uganda-DR Congo border. PHOTO BY enid ninsiima. Officials from the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) in conjunction with Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) have impounded 25 young parrots that were being smuggled out of the country.

According to the UWA, the birds, that include 21 grey parrots and four brown-necked ones, were being smuggled to the DR Congo.

The parrots were reportedly captured from Queen Elizabeth National Park. They were impounded last week at Mpondwe border post on the Uganda-DR Congo border.

The rescue

“Immigrations and security people suspected a box to be contraband. They opened it and found smuggled parrots but the owner had since fled and abandoned his/her loot,” Mr John Makombo, the UWA conservation director told the Daily Monitor yesterday.

Mr Makombo said the parrots were taken to Uganda Wildlife Educational Centre (UWEC) for rehabilitation before being released back to the wild. UWEC spokesperson Belinda Atim said the parrots reached the centre in a very poor condition and one of them had died. “They squeeze them in small boxes and were being fed them on fermented stuff,” she said.

Ms Atim added that they were still closely monitoring the impounded parrots in a quarantine enclosure for 30 days before releasing them back into the wild.

Trade in African grey parrots is a lucrative business as it fetches between $1500 to $4000 (about Shs 3.9 million to Shs10 million) on the international market. A total of 150 African grey parrots were recently impounded in Kasese District on the Uganda-Congo border.