Efforts Grow to Clip Wings of Black Market in Exotic Birds

A dozen jungle-green parrots, their heads styled with dazzling yellow and scarlet feathers, huddled close together inside their chicken-wire cages, which were displayed on a street corner near downtown. The birds squawked, took friendly nips at each other with their lumpy beaks, and occasionally munched on sunflower seeds.

“I take good care of the birds; it’s my business,” said the bird seller, Marcos, a chunky man in a short-sleeve shirt. “The small ones, los cotorritos, they sell for $25. The larger ones, they cost $60. They’re all young; six months or so.”

The largest parrot had his own cage.

“That’s el loro, a Mexican yellow-head,” Marcos explained, speaking in Spanish but using the English term, accustomed as he was to dealing with prospective U.S. purchasers. “That costs $150.”

Could a buyer legally bring a bird back to the United States?

“You have to hide them,” Marcos explained.

Wouldn’t a parrot make noise crossing the border?

“Just put him in your purse and close it,” Marcos assured the prospective buyer. “There’s no problem.”

Marcos’ street-sale enterprise is a tiny, but highly visible, manifestation of what authorities say is a thriving, multimillion-dollar business along the U.S.-Mexican border: The sale of birds and other wildlife and animal products for eventual illegal entry into the United States and lucrative resale. From Tijuana on the Pacific Coast to Matamoros in the Rio Grande Valley, buyers with an eye toward U.S. markets purchase everything from parrots to iguanas, from sea-turtle eggs to tarantulas, jaguar skins and monkeys. Threatened and endangered species are caught up in the flourishing trade along with more commonplace creatures.

“The border has been a major problem for us for a number of years,” said Jerome S. Smith, deputy chief with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s division of law enforcement in Washington.

Recently, however, the problem--and the effort to stop it--has taken on new dimensions with regard to bird-smuggling, perhaps the largest single component of the illicit animal trade from Mexico. As the birds become rarer and their values soar, officials say that threatened birds from throughout Latin America, as well as Asia, Africa and even Australia, are now entering the United States via Mexico, just as South American cocaine is often trans-shipped through Mexico.

Besides further depleting already-dwindling bird populations, the flourishing trade poses a serious threat to U.S. pet bird stocks and the domestic poultry industry because of the possible spread of exotic avian diseases.

In the last six months, noted Smith, officials have detected the illegal entry into Mexico of about 250 palm cockatoos, magnificent black birds found in only three countries--Australia, Papua New Guinea and Australia; commercial export of the bird is prohibited from all three nations, Smith noted. The birds, which are being smuggled into the United States in groups of eight or 10 at a time, fetch up to $10,000 apiece north of the border.

Meanwhile, enforcement efforts on the U.S. side are increasingly targeting the leaders of well-organized bird-smuggling rings.

In October, U.S. officials in San Diego arrested Jose Jesus Gomez Valdovinos, a 41-year-old Tijuana shopkeeper who authorities say is one of the major Tijuana suppliers of black-market birds.

Got Other Convictions

Previously, prosecutors had obtained convictions against a U.S. middleman and pet-outlet operators in Louisiana and South Carolina who had allegedly purchased from Gomez more than 300 yellow-naped Amazon parrots. The birds, prized for their bright colors and mimicking abilities, had a street value of more than $250,000.

Gomez has denied the charges.

Officials acknowledge that most smugglers are never apprehended. “The cases we make are only the tip of the iceberg,” said David Klinger, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The flourishing trade has alarmed conservationists and others concerned about the future of many of the birds, some of which are already severely threatened by deforestation, habitat destruction and other factors.

“We believe that the populations of many of these birds, particularly in Mexico, are being affected substantially by this trade,” said Jorgen Thomsen, a biologist with TRAFFIC (U.S.A.), an arm of the World Wildlife Fund in Washington.

Carriers of Ailments

Authorities fear that smuggled birds may be carriers of various ailments, notably Newcastle disease, a lethal virus which is highly contagious among birds and potentially catastrophic for legal pet birds and for the U.S. poultry industry. In the early 1970s, U.S. authorities in California spent almost $60 million to destroy millions of chickens and otherwise eradicate an outbreak of Newcastle disease that was believed to have been caused by black-market parrots.

That experience led to the institution of a quarantine system for all imported parrots. Each year, some 250,000 parrots are legally imported into the United States, most of them from Latin America, according to the World Wildlife Fund. U.S. authorities say tens of thousands are smuggled in via the U.S.-Mexico border; additional birds are brought in illegally through other points of entry.

Organized Control

As with the illicit drug trade, organized rings now appear to control much of the bird-smuggling industry, although U.S. tourists returning from Mexico often attempt to bring birds back clandestinely. (The birds cannot be bought back legally without a Mexican government permit, which is extremely difficult to obtain. Legally imported birds must also clear quarantine.)

The growth of large bird-smuggling rings is indicative of the many parallels between the illicit border markets in drugs and animals--terms such as “safe-houses” and “runners” are commonly employed in both industries. False vehicle panels frequently used to conceal smuggled drugs are also used to move birds through border checkpoints.

“We find that many of our more serious violators switch back and forth, from wildlife to narcotics, from narcotics to wildlife,” said Smith of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “It depends on how much heat is being put on them in one business.”

Profits from smuggling birds can rival those of moving illegal drugs. A parrot purchased for about $35 in Mexico can fetch 10 times that amount or more in the United States.

Light Penalties

Unlike convicted drug violators, however, bird smugglers face a much lower risk of serving extensive jail terms, both because penalties are lower and judges are less likely to impose lengthy sentences. “You get a judge with all kinds of drug cases and murders before him, and he’s not likely to see a parrot case as a big deal,” said Tom Smylie, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife regional office in Albuquerque.

The birds are moved across the border in a variety of ways. Often, the birds are tied in sacks or in socks and their beaks are taped. (“They’re like little mummies,” said one official.) Sometimes the birds are fed tequila-laced feed or pills to ensure their silence. Many birds--some say most--die from stress or mistreatment before ever reaching the United States.

In one case, 121 of 163 lilac-crowned parrots seized in an undercover operation in Nogales, Ariz., died because they were packed so tightly.

Hampering law-enforcement efforts is a lack of resources. The regional Fish and Wildlife office in Albuquerque, for instance, has only about 30 agents to cover more than 1,500 miles of border in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Meanwhile, much of the enforcement along the border is focused on drug-smuggling and illegal immigration, leaving little room to concentrate on the illicit wildlife trade.

In the United States, smugglers sell the black-market birds to pet suppliers, pet shops and collectors. Once across the border, it can be virtually impossible for U.S. investigators to distinguish between the black-market birds and legal ones, making it difficult to bring cases against U.S. outlets dealing in smuggled parrots. (Most violators are now prosecuted under the federal Lacey Act, which makes it illegal to sell or receive wildlife taken in violation of any state, federal or foreign law.)

Regular Confiscation

U.S. authorities regularly confiscate dozens of smuggled birds that survived the odyssey from their tropical homes to the United States. Such birds are first quarantined; the more common ones are then sold to the public at auctions in San Diego and elsewhere, while rarer species are provided to zoos and other institutions.

In one odd success story, confiscated thick-billed parrots from Mexico have been reintroduced to a former southern Arizona habitat, the Chiricahua Mountains, where the Apache war chief Geronimo made his last stand a century ago.