Rare egg smuggler gets bird for illegal import plot

10th January

Press Association 2018

A prolific smuggler has been jailed after he was caught entering the UK with protected bird eggs strapped to his chest.

Jeffrey Lendrum, 56, was handed a jail term of three years and one month on Thursday after he pleaded guilty to four offences on the second day of his trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) confirmed.

Lendrum, of Cliftonville Road in Northampton, had been caught with the eggs strapped to his body by a sling hidden underneath a heavy coat at Heathrow airport on June 26 2018.

CPS

Bird egg smuggler jailed for three years - CPS London South

Jeffrey Lendrum, 56, pleaded guilty to four offences on the second day of his trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court on January 8. He was imprisoned today [January 10]. More: https://bit.ly/2SIwejv 

Lendrum had flown into the UK from Johannesburg, South Africa, and had hatched a plan to use socks and other padding devices to try and protect the precious cargo.

The prosecution was able to prove that Lendrum knowingly smuggled the eggs in to the country for commercial gain by trying to evade customs, the CPS said.

Remi Ogunfowora, of the CPS, said: “We worked with our partners in the National Crime Agency to ensure this prolific bird egg smuggler faced appropriate charges.

“We hope the sentence passed deters others from becoming involved in the damaging trade around rare and endangered wildlife.”

Source  

Seven bird poachers jailed in China

MARCH 7TH, 2016 

Beijing, March 7 (IANS) Seven people were jailed in China’s Hunan province on Monday for poisoning endangered birds and trafficking their carcasses for meat.

The People’s Court in Yueyang city sentenced one of the seven to 12 years in jail and fined him 10,000 yuan ($1,500), Xinhua reported.

Two others were sentenced to 10 years in prison and were fined 10,000 yuan while four were jailed for one to six years.

The gang poisoned, transported and sold endangered birds from the wetlands of Dongting Lake Nature Reserve and surrounding regions.

Continued ...

College student gets over 10 yrs' jail for poaching rare birds

Press Trust of India  |  Beijing December 2, 2015 Last Updated at 16:22 IST

A Chinese court today sentenced two persons, including a college student, to 10 years in prison for hunting 12 endangered birds during summer vacation and selling them online.

The court of Huixian county in central China's Henan province heard that Yan, born in 1994, was college student in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan.

He caught 12 Eurasian hobbies on July 14 last year with a friend surnamed Wang.

One of the birds died while another escaped.

The remaining 10 were sold via the internet for more than 1,000 yuan (about USD 156).

The pair caught two more Eurasian hobbies on July 27, as well as two other falcons, before they were put into custody by the forestry police bureau of Huixian county.

Yan also bought a crested goshawk illegally. 

Continued …

Man who tried to smuggle birds in PVC tubes gets 9 weeks jail

ASIAONE

Saturday, Oct 17, 2015

SINGAPORE - He wanted to import nine live birds into Singapore, so 43-year-old Leong Kay Cheong stuffed the birds into customised polyvinyl chloride (PVC) tubes and wrapped them up in aluminium foil and black trash bags.

On Friday, the Singaporean was sentenced to nine weeks in jail for illegally importing the birds, and will also serve a concurrent three-week sentence for animal cruelty.

The birds were found inside Leong's luggage at Changi Airport in April 2014. He had arrived on a flight from Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.

The Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) identified three of the birds as White-Rumped Shama birds (Copsychus malabaricus), and six of the birds as Melodious Laughing Thrush birds (Garrulax canorus), which is protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

- See more at:

Bird nest smugglers get 22, 14 years in jail

Thanh Nien News

HO CHI MINH CITY - Friday, August 28, 2015 09:32

A Ho Chi Minh City court Wednesday sentenced a woman to 22 years in jail for smuggling in more than six tons of bird’s nest from Malaysia and Indonesia.

Between May 2011 and July 2012 Vo Ngoc Phuong, 42, had operated a HCMC-based ring that smuggled VND36 billion worth of bird’s nest, causing losses of VND 9 billion in tax, the indictment said.

Her henchman Lu Chi Hao was sentenced to 14 years for his role in the smuggling.

Two custom officials at Hanoi’s Noi Bai airport, Nguyen Quang Hung and Nguyen Minh Duc, each got a three-year term for helping the huge contraband smoothly pass through customs.

Nguyen Trung Cong, a ground service official working for Vietnam Airlines, got a two-year suspended sentence for helping the smugglers.

Continued ...

Video: Gamekeeper jailed for ensnaring and killing birds of prey thanks to RSPB video monitoring

Video: Gamekeeper jailed for ensnaring and killing birds of prey thanks to RSPB video monitoring

Jan 13, 2015 13:55

By Record Reporter

GEORGE Mutch was sentenced to four months in jail for laying illegal traps and bludgeoning a goshawk to death with a stick.

George Mutch, 48, was sentenced to four months at Aberdeen Sheriff Court after he was convicted of laying illegal traps and killing a goshawk by hitting it with a stick.

It is understood to be the first custodial sentence for a wildlife crime in Scotland.

Mutch was caught following video monitoring by RSPB officials on the Kildrummy estate near Alford in Aberdeenshire in August 2012.

The footage showed that a jay had been used as a lure in a cage-style trap which had caught a rare goshawk.

Mutch was seen killing the distinctive bird by repeatedly striking it with a stick, the court head.

Continued ...

Elderly woman, age 81, remains jailed for feeding birds

Perhaps owners of bird feeders should be aware as they might just have to go to jail.

Sebring (Fox13) reported earlier, January 31, 2014, that a woman, age 81, who is reported as having dementia and Alzheimer’s was recently arrested for feeding bears in her backyard. There is video here also.

Below is an updated report of March 6, 2014, where she was arrested and jailed for failing to obey her court order.

Her attorney reported that her husband is not well and this has taken its toll on him as well. The attorney warned the judge that the world was watching.

She was arrested and told by the judge that if she fed any more wildlife she would go to jail. The authorities explained that when people feed the bears they become acclimated to humans and can be dangerous.

Continued

Rare buzzards beaten to death by gamekeeper

With four brutal blows, Colin Burne smashes the protected bird of prey until its life ebbs away.

Seconds later, he repeats the outrage, grabbing another trapped buzzard and pummelling the bird to death with a wooden stake.

In a final act of defilement for one of the countryside’s most beautiful creatures, the 64-year-old gamekeeper hurls the lifeless birds into a bucket.

Unknown to Burne, each graphic moment of the 90-second onslaught was being captured by a covert camera set up to watch a bird-trap on land managed by a private shooting syndicate in Whinfell Forest, near Penrith, Cumbria. RSPB investigators had begun the surveillance operation after a tip-off and were left stunned at the brazen way Burne killed the protected birds. When officers from Cumbria Police and the RSPB later searched the site they found the remains of several other buzzards.

Read on

Only 70 days jail sentence?  Suspended for a year due to ill-health?  Oh come on.......

Jail for mass killing of endangered birds

An Ashburton man who drove into a colony of nearly 10,000 endangered birds, squashing nests and eggs, has been sentenced to prison. 

The colony of endangered black-billed gulls, one of the most endangered gull species in the world, had been nesting at the Ashburton River.

Samuel John Townhill pleaded guilty in the Ashburton District Court today to charges of destroying nests and disturbing a protected species when he drove into the colony on the Ashburton riverbed in November last year.

Disturbing protected birds and destroying nests are offences under the Wildlife Act that can result in imprisonment or a fine of $100,000.

Judge Maze sentenced Townhill, who is currently imprisoned on other matters, to one month's jail cumulative on his current sentence.

Department of Conservation Raukapuke Area Office manager George Hadler said the "unnecessary mindless act" incident was likely to have a significant impact on the gull colony, which made up 11 per cent of the total black-billed gull population that year.

''Not only were eggs destroyed but the disturbance of adult birds would probably have caused other nests to fail.''

Hadler said killing and disturbing black-billed gulls was a real threat to the species.

In 2007 more than 100 adult birds were killed by vandals at the same site on the Ashburton riverbed, while in December last year about 50 chicks were killed in an incident on the Ashley River north of Christchurch.

Black-billed gulls are found only in New Zealand and are classified as 'nationally endangered' due to concern about their rate of decline and risk of extinction.

Most of the population breeds on South Island riverbeds.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/8638689/Jail-for-mass-killing-of-endangered-birds