Wild Pets and Laboratory Animals: Birds: Page 6 Endangered Species Handbook

Trade

Wild Pets and Laboratory Animals: Birds: Page 6

Although the United States has strict laws prohibiting importation of endangered birds without permits, some aviculturists have managed to smuggle birds by using complex and clandestine routes. One truly stunning case was the indictment in 1994 of Tony Silva, an aviculturist who had represented himself as a parrot conservationist, and served as Curator of Birds at Loro Parque, a parrot zoo in the Canary Islands. This zoo has many endangered birds, including several Spix's Macaws, which have never been legally exported from Brazil, either for zoos or any other purpose. Silva was caught in a Fish and Wildlife Service Law Enforcement sting called “Operation Renegade,” after search warrants were issued on business records in his home and that of his mother. Searches of their premises uncovered documentation of a major smuggling operation specializing in endangered birds. Silva and his mother, who was also indicted, conspired to smuggle numerous rare birds from 1985 onward with the cooperation of a Paraguayan citizen who was also indicted, as was Hector Ugalde, a Miami citizen who aided in the conspiracy (USDJ 1994). Silva earned an estimated $1.3 million from this smuggling. Among the CITES Appendix I birds smuggled were 186 Hyacinth Macaws, seven Blue-throated Conures (Pyrrhura cruenta), several highly endangered Vinaceous Amazons (Amazona vinacea), and two endangered Golden Conures (Aratinga guarouba), the latter being one of the most coveted of all birds by collectors. The latter three species are also listed on the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Silva also smuggled Red-fronted and Great Green Macaws, listed on CITES Appendix I and extremely rare in the wild. Other rare species smuggled by Silva included three protected Brazilian Crimson-bellied Conures (Pyrrhura rhodogaster) and another Brazilian bird, and threatened Yellow-faced Amazons (Amazona xanthops), along with several endangered primates. Silva also illegally exported Gray Parrots from the United States to New Zealand and smuggled two endangered Red-vented Cockatoos from the Philippines, according to the indictment. In 1987, Silva received an illegal shipment of nine protected Chilean Flamingos (Phoenicopterus chilensis), a CITES Appendix II species (USDJ 1994). He smuggled three endangered Yellow-shouldered Amazons (Amazona barbadensis) as well.

According to Fish and Wildlife Service Law Enforcement agents, Silva and his co-conspirators were the foremost illegal dealers in rare birds during the entire decade of the 1990s. Lois J. Schiffer, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, said: "The defendants were involved in nothing less than plundering the national treasures of other countries. These crimes threaten not only our ability but that of the international community to protect endangered species and global biodiversity" (USDJ 1996). An affidavit by an undercover Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent (Marks 1992) attested that Silva had invited an unnamed source to his home and showed him resin-like glue that was extracted from a certain species of tree and was used in South America for the express purpose of trapping Hyacinth Macaws. Silva showed the source photographs of rare parrots dyed to look like other species of birds to avoid detection in transport. Enrique Basan, an unindicted co-conspirator who resided in Brazil, trapped many of these endangered birds and shipped them to Gisela Caseres in Paraguay, who then smuggled them to the United States (USDJ 1994).

The Hyacinth Macaws were then transported by charter aircraft and across the Mexican border, placed in PVC plastic tubing and hidden in car door panels. Many died of suffocation and overheating on the way. Some smuggled parrots were placed in false-bottomed suitcases under mounds of clothing. In 1989, wasting disease ravaged Silva's aviary, killing many of the surviving rare birds, which he kept in a basement aviary (Marks 1992). Silva shipped 35 of the smuggled Hyacinth Macaws to Mario Tabraue, who spent time in prison on a 100-year sentence for murder and drug-related crimes. Prior to his conviction, he ran a quarantine station and wildlife importation business known as Zoological Imports. Tabraue paid Silva and his mother $100,000 for this shipment and had previously bought other smuggled animals; he would then offer the wildlife for sale in interstate and foreign commerce (USDJ 1994). All the macaws were dead on arrival (Marks 1992). Silva used closed legbands to identify fraudulently smuggled Hyacinth Macaw chicks as bred in captivity, and conspired with a bird importer, Larry Lafeber of Rosemont, Illinois, to use the latter's quarantine facilities to launder smuggled wildlife. He and Silva illegally removed U.S. Department of Agriculture quarantine seals from Lafeber's station to take smuggled wildlife out of the station. Lafeber also forged health certificates for two smuggled Hyacinth Macaws (USDJ 1994).

Silva wrote a book on endangered parrots, in which he described the Hyacinth Macaw as being "worth its weight in gold," and regularly gave lectures on parrots, presenting himself as a conservationist. In a 1991 article on the Hyacinth Macaw, he stated, "Unless all of the pressures are brought under control, this species may be unable to survive in the world to greet the 21st century" (USDJ 1996). In fact, he contributed to its endangered status. With its very slow reproduction rate, lack of protected reserves or parks in its range, and continued threats by hunters and destruction of its nesting trees, this beautiful macaw may indeed fade into extinction as a result of smuggling. Since these birds are easily recognized, and the CITES listing ended legal trade, only an extremely well-financed operation such as that conducted by Silva, involving the use of small aircraft that carried the birds from remote parts of South America to Mexico where they were smuggled over the border, could have succeeded in obtaining these birds. Australian government studies have documented that up to 10 birds die for every bird that survives smuggling, and most operations incur a mortality rate of 80 percent (PCA 1976). The Fish and Wildlife Service investigation uncovered high mortalities among the macaws Silva smuggled and, thus, he is probably responsible for the deaths of 1,860 (10 times the 186 for which he was indicted) of these rare birds.

Silva had warned of the serious consequences of rampant poaching of wild birds in a 1991 speech at the Parrot Symposium International (The New York Times 1996), and in a November 1995 interview, he stated, "I love birds. I could never be involved in anything that killed them" (The New York Times 1996). Through his smuggling, Silva was responsible for the deaths of hundreds--and perhaps thousands--of birds, of which the majority were rare and endangered species. Prior to the indictment, but after it was revealed that he was being investigated, he was interviewed by the public television station WGBH in Boston for a NOVA program, The Great Wildlife Heist (1994); he made statements admitting an uncontrollable desire to own rare birds (See Video - Trade).

Smuggling is the cruelest activity associated with the bird trade. Smugglers have used hundreds of concealment techniques to avoid detection when crossing borders. These include placing small birds in the center of hair curlers stacked in enclosed boxes or suitcases; stuffing parrots inside

tire wells and even hubcaps in cars; and placing them inside clothing being worn and in stifling secret compartments in shipping crates and suitcases. Birds are smuggled on rafts across the Rio Grande River, and in many cases, the rafts have overturned and the birds drowned. Sometimes when smugglers believe that they have been spotted by law enforcement officers, they kill the birds they are smuggling by intentionally drowning them or throwing them out of moving cars. Often the birds are wrapped tightly, with their wings unable to spread and their beaks taped. They die of overheating.

Silva faced a combined maximum prison term of 45 years and a maximum total fine of $2.5 million, but he reached a plea bargain with the Justice Department the day his trial was to begin in January 1996. In early June, he was jailed as a flight risk prior to sentencing. Because he was fluent in Spanish and had many contacts in other countries, the Justice Department was convinced that, in spite of the fact that a lien had been placed on his house and his passport had been seized, he might leave the country to avoid going to jail. His plea of guilty to conspiracy to violate wildlife and Customs laws, and filing a false income tax return, resulted in the longest prison term ever given to a bird smuggler, handed down in late 1996: 6 years and 10 months. His mother received a sentence of 27 months in jail. This case, like other smuggling cases in “Operation Renegade,” was based on a long investigation which uncovered indisputable proof of the Silvas' guilt, as have many such indictments. Most, however, end in penalties far below what would be allowed by law. Judge Elaine Bucklo of the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, deserves considerable praise for rendering this stiff jail sentence, and also for ruling that Silva be jailed for six months prior to the sentencing. In another “Operation Renegade” case involving the indictment of a Florida bird importer, Louie Mantas, the defendant left the country prior to the commencement of his trial and is now a fugitive with outstanding warrants for his arrest.

Much progress has been made in giving longer sentences to wildlife smugglers. A decade ago, jail sentences for wildlife crimes were virtually unknown. New sentencing guidelines enacted by Congress recommending higher penalties have had a major role in the imposition of longer jail sentences, and judges have begun taking these crimes far more seriously than in the past.