A bird that is seen to be one of, if not the most intelligent bird in the world is facing a hefty battle, to exist in the wild and subsequently stave off what seems to be an impending extinction.
The African grey parrot is the second most trafficked animal in the world after the pangolin. It is native to Africa, in the tropical forests of West and Eastern Africa.
In Uganda this bird can be found around Kibale National Park and some off shore islands of Lake Victoria.
The African grey parrot was recently classified under appendix I by Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITIES ), a multilateral agreement to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of international trade, as threatened with extinction – while the IUCN lists it as critically endangered.
This is all attributed to the intense poaching and trafficking of the African Grey parrot, a habit that is even getting more sophisticated, according to Wilson Katunuga, a Uganda Wildlife Authority warden attached to Entebbe International Airport where some of the parrots are being trafficked out of the country.
“These birds are caught or poached by locals around forests. The actual hunters/ poachers are paid little money to capture the birds. It’s very cheap to use poachers to get the parrots than get the ones bred in captivity which cost significantly more”. Explains Katunuga.
Katunuga adds that the illegal dealings in the African Grey parrot, are currently run on the internet, Facebook, and other social media platforms where traffickers bargain with the potential buyers and also do forgery of documents for exports, imports and also for CITIES permits.
The biggest market for the African grey parrots is the Middle East, Europe and the USA. However, of late neighboring African countries are also participating in this grim trade.
As a leading conservation agency in Uganda, the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Centre (UWEC), has for years taken the lead in conserving the African Grey Parrots through their different programs of rescuing the trafficked birds and those that people keep illegally in their homes as pets.
The Centre is currently running a parrot conservation partnership program with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), where over 100 parrots that were rescued from traffickers, were rehabilitated from, before they could be released back to the wild.
The partnership involves infrastructure development and human capacity building to acquire more knowledge and skills through the exchange programs. Other partners in efforts of saving this most trafficked bird are Uganda Wildlife Authority, World Parrot Trust, World Association of Zoos and Aquarium – WAZA and Pan African Association of Zoos and Aquarium – PAZA
David Musingo, the head of the Education and Information department at UWEC says, after the African Grey parrot being listed as an endangered specie, they(management have taken it upon themselves to make sure they devise all possible ways protect and conserve the parrots.
“Our interest is to create awareness about the value and importance of the African parrot and how we can conserve them instead of trading in the parrots. At UWEC, we have had this conservation education program for a while and are happy to communicate that we have been boosted with support from JICA” explains Musingo.
With these efforts put in place, UWEC recently released 55 African Grey Parrots back to Kibale National Park, following a rehabilitation period of more than a year at the Centre.
The released parrots were part of the 119 that were confiscated at the Bunagana border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda in April 2022. The remaining batch is still under close monitoring at UWEC and once signs of survival in the wild are high, they will also be let free to enjoy their natural habitats.
In the most recent count by the IUCN in 2022, the world population of the African Grey parrots in the wild stands between 40,000 – 100,000 birds and apart from heavy trafficking, habitat destruction is also affecting their population.
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