Bengaluru and Mumbai forest department officials have arrested a man for selling and keeping exotic birds and animals, in a two-day operation, in Mumbai on Wednesday.
BENGALURU: Bengaluru and Mumbai forest department officials have arrested a man for selling and keeping exotic birds and animals, in a two-day operation, in Mumbai on Wednesday. The forest officials from in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and the Bengaluru forest squad division officials were in touch with each other in the past fortnight for the operation. The teams rescued one rose ringed parakeet, seven house sparrows, two Indian silverbills, three scaly breasted munias, three monitor lizards and a red avadavat.
A forest official said that the Mumbai forest officials had arrested one Zaid in Thane. On being interrogated, he said that he had links in Bengaluru. The officials then contacted the Bengaluru team, who conducted raids in Shivajinagar and Tannery Road. They rescued the birds and reptiles and arrested Zaid’s associates.
The official said that the accused were circulating pictures of birds and animals, listed under the Wildlife Protection Act (1972), on social media, to sell them. “Based on information from the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau and with intelligence inputs, we got to know of Zaid. In the meantime, the Thane police had arrested him for keeping two spotted doves and four spotted owls.
When they inquired, he revealed his links in Bengaluru. We checked our records and found that he was arrested earlier in June in Bangalore for selling baby crocodiles,” the official said.To keep and breed these animals and birds, permission from the chief wildlife warden and the zoo authority of Karnataka is a must. The accused did not have any such permission.
