Illegal parrots still smuggled through EP

By Louie Gilot / El Paso Times
El Paso Times
Photo by Heidi Lindskog / El Paso Times
Article Launched:02/25/2007 12:00:00 AM MST

Eight or 10 years ago, it wasn't uncommon for pet-shop owner Dean Travis to be approached by bird smugglers with Mexican parrots stuffed into their coat pockets. He always turned them down.

But it has been years since Travis was last propositioned and, he said, the pet industry is the better for it.

"I think people understand that they want to buy a parrot that will be part of a family and be happy. And to take a bird from the wild is not going to achieve that," said Travis, the owner of Pet's Barn, where the birds for sale have been bred in the United States.

Things have changed so much in just a few years that the U.S. demand for exotic birds is not what's driving the illegal market anymore.

A recent report by the Washington, D.C.-based group Defenders of Wildlife found that while El Paso is still a route for smuggling Mexican parrots into the United States, most of the market for the birds is now in Mexico. Only 4 percent to 14 percent of the captured wild birds are now smuggled into the United States, a sea change from the '70s and '80s, according to the report.