150 African grey parrots were seized at the border post of Uganda-Congo in Kasese district by the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) and Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) officials. James Tumwesigye the manager of Queen Elizabeth Conservation Area said that the parrots had been hidden in boxes that had spare parts for motorcycle with French labels and were discovered when the workers were checking the boxes plus the supplementary documents. He went on and said that the URA officials started doubting when they failed to get the documents from the UWA that showed that the birds were cleared by them although the documents from the Congo customs that were in French showed 276 African grey parrots had been cleared to enter Uganda.
Tumwesigye said that the accused allegedly went to pick the UWA documents that show the clearance of the birds but might have gone with other boxes containing more birds because they drove off towards Kasese at a high speed leaving the vehicle that had the three boxes behind and these birds were given to UWA and he added that the business might have been going on from Congo through Uganda and may be to Kenya.
Trading in African grey parrots is a profitable business because the cost of an African grey parrot starts from $200-$700 on the international market.
