Victory!! The UK`s biggest wild bird market has been cancelled

updated  22-10-04

The National Cage and Aviary Bird Exhibition was due to be held at the Royal Agricultural Society`s Stoneleigh Park in December, but the event organisers announced yesterday that they were cancelling the event!! Read the Animal Protection Agency`s press release below. Last year, the event was staged at the NEC in Birmingham, but after Animal Aid`s campaign, they refused to host the event this year! Click here to read more about the history of this campaign including how West Midlands Animal Action held weekly protests in Solihull.

Animal Protection Agency Press Release 20-10-04 Giant exotic bird market is toppled!! Britain's biggest bird market, the 'National Cage & Aviary Birds Exhibition', due to take place on 4th and 5th December 2004 at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire, has been halted by the Animal Protection Agency (APA). Less than 48 hours before a permission stage judicial review hearing, IPC Media, organisers of the event, advised that the bird market would not go ahead. Most people imagine that abusing and inhumane wildlife markets only happen in remote, foreign bazaars! But bizarrely such events occur here too, and are unlawful. Last year the IPC event took place at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham and was wrongly licensed to sell 100,000 birds. An ornithologist who visited the market, estimated that around half of the birds would have been captured from the wild. Several animal protection organisations monitored the event and found many breaches of animal welfare legislation. Warwickshire resident and life supporter of APA, Aileen Vania, initiated legal proceedings when she discovered that the event had moved to her area. Soon after, APA joined the legal battle to stop the market going ahead. Warwickshire District Council acknowledged that any bird sales that took place at the event would break the law but were non-committal about taking action to prevent the illegal market or about prosecuting offenders afterwards. APA has now homed in on the Stafford Bird Show, which is probably the largest remaining event of its kind in the UK. Meanwhile it is working with other local authorities to close down smaller bird and reptile markets. Says Elaine Toland, Director of APA; "We are winning our battle against illegal pet markets, which is good news for animal welfare, protection of species and public health. The sickening abuse of animals at the IPC market - hailed as the bird industry's flagship event - was particularly shocking and hopefully the organisers will not attempt to stage this event again." However, disturbingly a draft Bill is now being considered in parliament, which proposes to legalise exotic pet markets and undo the progress that has been made by APA, Birds First, the Captive Animals' Protection Society and many other animal welfare groups in opposing these events. "Legalising pet fairs would set us back twenty years." Says Elaine Toland.

History of the campaign to stop the bird market

The National Cage & Aviary Bird Exhibition, organised by Cage & Aviary Birds Magazine, is the largest event on the UK bird-dealing calendar and can see up to 100,000 birds traded in one day. At these giant bird markets, ornithological experts have estimated that around half of the birds on sale are wild-caught. For the past 25 years this annual event has taken place at Birmingham`s NEC, but this year was scheduled to take place at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire on 4 & 5 December.

In July 2003, National group Animal Aid launched a major campaign to stop the event going ahead in December. The selling of pet animals in a public place is actually illegal (under The Pet Animals Act 1951), so the campaign focused on Solihull Council as they licenced the event. Solihull Council received many thousands of emails, letters and phonecalls from disgusted local residents and people across the country.

West Midlands Animal Action and Solihull Animal Aid joined forces to hold weekly demos/stalls in Solihull for over 3 months until December. Many thousands of leaflets were handed out, 10,000 signatures collected on the Animal Aid petition and hundreds of pounds raised towards the campaign! Each week, a campaigner in a colourful parrot costume could be seen flapping around on Solihull High Street, making friends with dozens of children and occupying the council offices!

In October, we organised the first ever march & rally against the wild bird trade! Over 50 people from far and wide joined us in Solihull to voice their disgust to Solihull Council and we marched twice round the town centre, including inside Touchwood Shopping Centre! Although the bird market went ahead on 6 & 7 December 2004, our protests made many 1,000`s of local people aware of the horrific facts of the trade in wild birds and it`s now clear that we helped put enough pressure on the council to stop them licencing the event this year!

A major joint investigation of the wild bird trade, conducted by the Environmental Investigation Agency, RSPCA and the RSPB, demonstrated that for every bird who survived the brutal capture and transportation process, a further three would have died. This means that hundreds of thousands of birds were snatched from their natural habitat for this one bird market alone, with three-quarters of them dying en route.

Exotic birds are either captured in flight by nets, trapped in baited cages or stuck to the branches of trees with sticky 'bird lime'. They may then spend weeks being transported between dealers and months waiting in a cage before being shipped by air to their country of destination. Fifty percent die between capture and transport. After habitat destruction, collection of birds for the pet trade is the biggest factor in species decline.

For more details about the trade in wild birds and how you can help stop it, click on the Animal Aid logo. The Animal Protection Agency is a recently formed group that will concentrate it`s campaigning against the exotic pet trade. The Animal Protection Agency carry out undercover investigations and work with local authorities and the police to crack down on wildlife crime. Check out their website below.

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