Britain’s got talons
One of the hatched Cape vultures A BIRD centre has hatched 17 rare African birds of prey from eggs seized from a wildlife smuggler at an airport.
Jeffrey Lendrum, 56, who has Irish and Zimbabwean citizenship, was caught with 19 fertile eggs
worth around €110,000, including African hawk-eagles, fish eagles and three endangered Cape vultures, in a sling under his coat at Heathrow.
One egg was broken and an African fish eagle died after three days, but conservationists at the International Centre for Birds of Prey in Newent, Glos, have handreared
Incubation chief Holly Cale and, inset, the stolen eggs the rest into young adults. Director Jemima Parry-jones said the plan is to breed the birds and set their offspring free.
“They cannot go back into the wild because they are too habituated to humans,” she said. “The birds belong to the Crown but I suspect they will stay here.” Lendrum, a former member of the Rhodesian SAS, was jailed for 37 months at Snaresbrook crown court, East London, last month after admitting four offences.
In 2010, he was caught at Birmingham airport with 14 rare peregrine falcon eggs.