Illegally-sent passerine birds confiscated in Jambi airport

As many as 58 White-rumped Shama, a member of the passerine family of birds, were confiscated Thursday at Sultan Thaha Syaifuddin Airport in Jambi.

The birds are now being kept by the Agricultural Quarantine Agency of Jambi administration.

The agency’s animal division head, Agus Rahmat Hasibuan, said the birds were confiscated after airport operators suspected something suspicious in the cargo sector.

“We suspected and managed to secure a package addressed to Jambi from Pontianak, West Kalimantan. We opened it and found that the contents were unlike what was written in the delivery documents, which stated it contained only two birds,” Agus said on Thursday.

The package was allegedly carried by a person, identified only as Y, from Pontianak to Jakarta using a Batavia Air flight and was left for one day in the Soekarno-Hatta Airport.

Y then sent the package using a delivery service from Garuda Indonesia Airlines.

The agency’s team has communicated the issue to the quarantine agency in Pontianak, Agus said.

“Similarly, in Pontianak, the permit was to send only two birds,” he said. “We will also coordinate with local zoos to save the birds because the agency is not a proper place to hold them.”

By Friday, 18 of the 58 birds had died.(fzm/iwa)