The following is a message taken from another list; thought it might be of
interest to Tweeters. I saw a piece on TV back a year or so ago about these
same parrot smugglers, being caught in the act at an airport, with large
numbers of Australian cockatoo eggs hidden in their vests.

Dave Nunnallee
dnun461 at ecy.wa.gov
Bellevue, WA
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Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 18:59:21 +0100
From: "by way of maq8492 at acs.tamu.edu Mike Quinn"
<susan_lieberman at MAIL.FWS.GOV>
Subject: CITES Update from the U.S. Office of Management Authority

The U.S. Office of Management Authority mailed out the following CITES
Update yesterday. We regret that due to the partial Federal
Government shutdown no Update was sent out during December, 1995.

**********************************************************************
CITES UPDATE #40
January 1996

Dear CITES Cooperator:

We would like to inform you of the following:

<snip>

LEADERS OF INTERNATIONAL WILDLIFE SMUGGLING RING SENTENCED: On December 12,
1995, a Federal judge in Los Angeles, California, sentenced two leaders of a
wild bird egg smuggling ring to prison. The pair were arrested and
prosecuted
as part of the U.S. Department of Justice's nationwide crackdown on wildlife
smuggling. William Arthur Wegner, 45, of La Jolla, California, and Brian T.
Bradley, 28, of New Paltz, New York, were sentenced to 60 and 41 months in
prison respectively for running a scheme that smuggled more than $1,000,000
in
protected wild bird eggs into the United States from Australia. The Federal
judge also found that Wegner had attempted to obstruct justice by committing
perjury at the trial of a co-defendant last summer. Wegner must pay a
$10,000
fine.

Wegner and Bradley had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges for
their leadership of a nine-year enterprise during which more than 700 eggs
of
protected cockatoos were smuggled from Australia to the United States in
violation of numerous wildlife laws including the Lacey Act, a Federal law
that protects wildlife. Wegner had also pleaded guilty to under-reporting
his
1987 income on Federal tax forms. Once in the United States, the cockatoo
eggs were hatched, reared, and sold to collectors under the guise that they
had
been produced by captive parent birds. The cockatoos sold for between
$1,000
and $13,000 per bird, depending on the species.

In addition to Wegner and Bradley, 13 other individuals have been convicted
in
California, Florida, New York, and Montana for their part in the cockatoo
egg
smuggling scheme. From 1983 to 1991, smugglers traveled to Australia each
year during the cockatoo breeding season and removed eggs from nest sites,
often in national park areas. After several days of collecting, the eggs
were
placed in home-made vests which contained pockets for up to 49 eggs. As the
smugglers left Australia, the vests were worn underneath outer clothing to
prevent detection by Customs authorities. Eggs which began to hatch during
transit from Australia to the United States were destroyed. The cockatoo
species smuggled by the group included the rose-breasted (or Galah)
cockatoo,
the Major Mitchell's (or Leadbeater's) cockatoo, the sulphur-crested
cockatoo,
the slender-billed cockatoo, the red-tailed black cockatoo, and the white-
tailed black cockatoo. All Australian cockatoos are listed on the CITES
Appendices.

Illegal international wildlife smuggling is estimated to be a five billion
dollar annual industry generating more profit than illegal arms sales and
second only to the world-wide drug trade.

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<end of forwarded message>