802 birds rescued; 2 traders jailed
Wildlife Crime Control Unit of the forest department rescued 802 birds from Gazipur, and two traders were jailed yesterday. A team of the WCCU raided a warehouse near Joydebpur intersection around 7:00am and recovered the birds, including blossom-headed parakeet, munia, house sparrow and starling (shalik), inspector of the unit Ashim Mallick told The Daily Star.
The traders, Lal Mia and Nazrul Islam, hailed from Habiganj, collected the birds from Rajshahi and kept them at the warehouse for sale, the inspector said. Later, those birds and traders were taken to Agargaon forest office in the capital.
The traders said they deployed seven to eight street vendors to sell those birds.
When asked about the price of the birds, the traders said they sold a pair of parakeets at Tk 2,000, a pair of munias at Tk 500 and a pair of sparrows at Tk 400. They took Tk 1,000 for a bank myna (shalik), he added. The duo also confessed that they coloured bank mynas to look those like hilly mynas and sold those at a higher price. Later, Sarwoer Alam, an executive magistrate of Rapid Action Battalion, jailed Lal Mia and Nazrul for one year.
The forest officials and law enforcers released 794 birds at Curzon Hall of Dhaka University and at Botanical Garden as eight birds died, said forest office sources. According to the Wildlife (protection and conservation) Act, 2012, trading, catching, hunting, carrying, killing and possession of wild birds is a criminal offence.
Source
The Daily Star. 8 Pct, 2015. http://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/802-birds-rescued-2-traders-jailed-153547
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