Tue 19 Feb
2019 04.25 GMTLast modified on Tue 19 Feb 2019 04.34 GMT
The federal environment
department does not know if hundreds of rare and endangered Australian birds
exported to a German organisation headed by a convicted kidnapper and
extortionist are still at the group’s facility in Brandenburg.
Department officials told Senate
estimates on Monday night their wildlife compliance unit was investigating
after Guardian Australia reported
the government had been warned birds sent to the Association
for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots (ACTP) could be sold to collectors
at a huge profit.
Officials told the hearing they
had received multiple allegations about ACTP’s activities dating back to late
2016.
Kylie Jonasson, the first
assistant secretary in the department’s biodiversity conservation division,
said each time the department received an allegation – including in July and
August 2017 – it had sought information from the German government and its
scientific authority responsible for the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species.
She said each time there had not
been enough evidence to confirm the complaints, and there was nothing to
prevent the department from continuing to issue permits to exporters sending
animals to ACTP.
But officials also told the
hearing that no department representative had ever visited the organisation’s
facility in Brandenburg and that they had not made inquiries as to whether more
than 200 birds exported to ACTP since 2015 were still there.
Guardian
Australia’s investigation found the department had
issued permits for 232 birds over three years on the grounds they would be used
for exhibition purposes because ACTP was a zoo.
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