Rare falcon egg seized from smuggler hatches and is returned to wild in Chile
Rare falcon egg seized from smuggler hatches and is returned to wild in Chile
Four albino peregrine eggs were seized from a convicted wildlife trafficker at an airport in Brazil. One survived to be returned to a nest on a Patagonian cliff face
AFP in Santiago
Thursday 28 January 2016 17.16 EST
A rare falcon egg stolen from its nest in Chile to be trafficked to Dubai for tens of thousands of dollars survived and hatched a chick, but three others failed to make it.
The surviving baby albino peregrine falcon, a species native to the Patagonia region at the southern tip of South America, nearly ended up being smuggled to the other side of the world in the UAE by a confessed wildlife trafficker.
But an anonymous caller tipped off Chilean authorities that Jeffrey Lendrum, an Irishman previously convicted of trying to smuggle peregrine falcon eggs out of Britain, was on the continent and preparing to strike again.
The Chileans alerted their Brazilian counterparts, who arrested Lendrum at São Paulo airport with an incubator containing four albino peregrine falcon eggs.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/28/rare-falcon-egg-seized-from-smuggler-hatches-and-is-returned-to-wild-in-chile