Animal sanctuary plagued with calls to take unwanted pandemic parrots
‘Dramatic’ hike in number of exotic pets abandoned since Covid
A GROWING number of parrots are being abandoned by people who bought them for company during the pandemic, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned.
Kevin Cunningham, manager of the National Exotic Animal Sanctuary in Co. Meath, said he has been ‘swamped’ by phone calls in the past few months from people asking him to take their pet birds.
Parrots are difficult animals to keep at home and many species are endangered, but despite this they are freely available online and at many pet shops in Ireland.
The African grey parrot, which is given the highest category of protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, to which Ireland is a signatory, can easily be found for sale here, often for more than €1,000.
Mr Cunningham told the MoS: ‘A lot of people bought parrots during the pandemic because they were working from home and now they realise that having a parrot in the house is a difficult undertaking.
‘Parrots are brilliant but they are very loud, they shriek a lot if they’re not being continuously stimulated and sometimes they just shriek because they like to make a lot of noise. As time goes on, the bird demands more and more attention and they can really become very difficult to live with.’
Mr Cunningham said sanctuary staff have been called out to places where parrots’ cages have been covered over for years to make them think that it’s night-time. He said this drives the bird crazy and leads it to ‘pluck its own feathers out and display all sorts of behavioural problems’.
Mr Cunningham also revealed the sanctuary, which has been operating for 12 years, has experienced a ‘dramatic increase’ in the number of calls in the past three years for all kinds of exotic animals.
‘People are getting more venomous species now which, over the past couple of years, has become more of an issue,’ he said.
‘There’s a large underground community of reptile keepers and quite a number of them are breeding and selling venomous snakes.’
He admitted the sanctuary is not able to hold these venomous reptiles because there is no anti-venom in the hospitals in Ireland.
Exotic animals can also bring dangerous diseases into the country; in 2020, a sable being kept as a pet in Co. Cork was found to have a rabies-like virus.
Mr Cunningham said: ‘We’ve seen people selling armadillos, wolves, big cats, monkeys, racoons, crocodiles... and there is no check on that in the Republic of Ireland and no requirement to get paperwork.
‘You need a licence for a dog in this country, you need a passport for a horse and yet you don’t need a licence for a tiger – that’s an issue. There just is no regulation in Ireland with regards to exotics.’
The sanctuary manager has called for the introduction of a licensing system in Ireland, as is already in place in Northern Ireland, to limit the trade of exotic animals to only those who are committed to owning these animals. There have also been calls to introduce a positive list system in Ireland, similar to one implemented in Belgium in 2001, whereby a detailed catalogue is made of all animal species that can be legally kept as pets by private individuals.
Gretta Dattan, a Masters in Common Law student at UCD who specialises in the exotic animal trade in Ireland, said: ‘Positive lists are a very easy legislative fix. They’ve already shown to be effective in Belgium and they are easy to implement.
‘We should learn from the ending of the fur trade in Ireland this month, which continued for decades longer than it should have.
‘I think the exotic pet trade is fairly similar. It’s a small industry, there’s not that many people whose livelihoods depend on the exotic pet trade, but it has the capacity to have a hugely detrimental impact on the animals involved, public health, public safety and the environment.’
However, TV vet Pete Wedderburn questioned the logic of adding more legislation when existing animal laws are not enforced.
Mr Wedderburn, also known as Pete
the Vet, told the MoS: ‘I think education would make a far bigger difference to exotic animal welfare.’
He also said that a new initiative by The Pet Charity in the UK has seen the introduction of a certificate system with some pet shops only selling exotic animals to those who can demonstrate that they’ve completed an educational online course on that species.
The Irish Pet Advertising Advisory Group, of which Dr Wedderburn is a member, is looking at whether Ireland could introduce a similar system.
‘Most people who keep exotic animals don’t know what they’re doing and they need to be educated,’ he said.
‘People are getting more venomous species now’