Lears Macaws Repatriation to Brazil

Lears Macaws Repatriation to Brazil?

Should they have been left with Harry SIssen?

Update 2004

Lears Macaws photographed above

‘Free the Brazil Three’ - Feathers fly as Tory MP Boris Johnson joins the row over the seized Lears Macaws.

For three years they have been held in a secure aviary in Yorkshire, happily crunching on nuts, fruit and seeds at the taxpayers’ expense.

But now the continued captivity of three of the world’s rarest birds – Lear’s macaws, seized by customs officials from a North Yorkshire parrot smuggler – is causing a flap, after a Tory MP called for the freeing of the “Brazil Three”.

Boris Johnson, the Conservative member for Henley, is also pressing Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, and Treasury Minster Paul Boateng, for 'speedy repatriation of the birds'.

He added: 'I hope people will back me in a campaign to free the Brazil Three. I do not believe the British taxpayer will indefinitely pay for the incarceration of these beautiful creatures'.

But for the moment the birds will be staying put, because of an appeal by parrot smuggler Harry Sissen against the confiscation of the macaws.

Mr Sissen, 63, of Cornhill Farm, East Cowton, near Northallerton, was jailed for 30 months – cut to 18 months on appeal – for smuggling the birds, seized from him in 1998.

A customs spokesman added: 'That is what’s causing the hold up. It has reached the appeal stage by the importer against a confiscation order imposed for his criminal activities'.

But no date has been set for the appeal, and until it is settled, Brazil’s claim on the birds could not be considered. Ana Candida, consular official with the Brazilian Embassy, said they were happy to wait for the British courts to rule on ownership.

But they felt that because the birds were illegally imported from Brazil they should ultimately be repatriated into the care of the country’s Institute of Environment, which had a programme for protecting the birds involving renowned scientists.

She added: 'We have been having a friendly and co-operative dialogue with the British authorities. We know customs are still waiting for a legal decision on gaining ownership of the birds so they can be disposed of and repatriated. The Institute of the Environment has been regularly informed about the healthy state of the birds, and does not have any reason to worry'.

Mr Sissen said: 'They are my birds. They know they are legal because all the genetic tests have come back correct. But they are still wriggling to get my birds off me and my farm. If we will lose this appeal we will go to Europe. It’s been my ambition to breed the endangered macaws for 30 years. If they went back to Brazil, they would be dead in no time, or end up going to the relatives of those in power in Brazil. You have got to believe the MP believes he is doing the right thing, but if he knew all the facts he would be quite appalled. I am not guilty, and will never stop fighting'.