Cameroon police seize 700 parrots at airport

YAOUNDE - Police in Cameroon seized nearly 700 parrots at an airport as they were about to be smuggled out of the country, a source close to the case said on Wednesday. Officers found the birds in 14 crates at the airport in the southern city of Douala, Cameroon's main economic centre, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Many of the parrots were dead, but the survivors were handed over to the Ministry of Wildlife and will be taken to a zoological park in Limbe, in the southwest of the country. "The crates of parrots were about to be loaded onto a flight run by an Ethiopian airline company," the source said, without giving details of the birds' final destination. Police were unable to arrest the smugglers, who may have been tipped off by "accomplices at the airport" ahead of Sunday's swoop, the source said. Last month a cargo of 300 parrots was seized at the same airport. Cameroon has frozen the export of parrots while a census of their population is carried out, according to the source.