Limbe Wildlife Centre

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More African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus)

Category: Cameroon, african grey parrot, illegal trade | Date: Nov 28 2008 | By: limbewildlifecentre

With ‘only’ around fifty African grey parrots remaining from the confiscations of November 2007, we thought that we were almost through with our parrot adventure. But the government of Cameroon takes the parrot trade seriously and last week another 39 parrots were seized from trappers in Mundemba and brought to the Limbe Wildlife Centre. It is incredible how much these birds eat, so we are looking for more funds for food and veterinary care. Each donation is very welcome.

transport baskets

Workers of DED (German Development Organisation) delivered the parrots to the LWC. We would like to thank them, because this was the quickest possible way to get the birds out of their miserable situation. They were packed in three small baskets, all on top of each other.

bad condition

They must have been without food and water for several days, because their condition was very bad and they were covered with faeces. As all the wings were clipped, they will have to stay in the LWC for a long time in order to regrow their feathers. In the first few days two of the parrots died.

clipped wings

The parrots are now housed in the quarantine. We will try to get some more meat on their bones soon, because they are very weak now. The sound of them has already changed from a nervous screaming to a nice variable song. Even if you know nothing about this species of birds, you just hear that they are doing better now then a few days ago. As soon as possible we will join them with the parrots that are living in our mango tree enclosure.

Best wishes,

Simone de Vries

Assistant Project Manager

3 Responses to “More African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus)”

Itay, Israel, on 29 Nov 2008

Great to hear another smugle was captured and beacuse of people like you this beards will have second chance. It certainly looks like the cameroon government is realy trying to minimize this illigle trade this year.

Bernice, on 03 Dec 2008

i have a soft spot for african greys. i adopted a wild caught african grey. of course he hates me. but on the upside, he hates everybody else more than he hates me so he always comes to me for protection and soothing. his wings were so mangled that we don’t even clip them anymore. he’ll never fly more than few feet and he can make a soft landing from his gage to the floor.
the little stinker knows the difference between my bare hand and the gloves. when i wear the gloves (so he doesn’t chew off my fingers) he the sweetest critter on earth. but once he sees bare skin, lookout.
someone was very mean to him before i got him. but he no longer plucks his feathers, so i must be doing something right with him. he even invites me to feed him and tries to feed me, especialy when he gets nervous.
yes, i have a soft spot for the greys.

mary schnyder, on 09 Feb 2009

Dear Simone

finally i managed to look up your blog and found your report about the grey parrots. thank you so much for taking care of the poor animals. i felt so sorry for them during all the transport. and it was wonderful to see how well you cared for them. allthough you had allready anounced it,i feel so sorry some of them had to die.i hope by now the parrots are allready sitting on the mango tree among their brothers and sisters.
enjoy Limbe for me -as you said: you are just sitting in paradise! here it’s rather cold - always around zero degrees, snow…you can immagine.
love Mary

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