The Parrot Peddler’s Perplexity: A Tale of Joe and the Avian Oops
Meet Joe, your average joe with an above-average love for parrots. Joe’s heart had more wings than a Boeing 747, specifically 20 colorful pairs of flapping wings. His home was an aeronautical display of squawks, feathers, and beaks. Weekends for Joe were like a jamboree at the park, parading his parrot pals and charming his chums into adopting these feathery friends—for a modest fee, of course!
This aviary enterprise was soaring high until one fateful day when the boys in blue arrived—not for a parrot show, but for a proverbial cage-rattling. With a rap of the knuckles and a flash of the badge, Joe’s beloved birds were confiscated, and he found himself trading his birdseed for handcuffs.
In the stark courtroom, amidst a flurry of legalese and gavel bangs, Joe was handed a sentence as heavy as an ostrich: five years in the coop and a fine of 3000 RMB. The charge? Peddling precious parrots of the endangered persuasion!
Dumbfounded, Joe could only gawk as if he, too, had just been taught to speak. These weren’t wild creatures; they were his pampered pets! Clinging to hope like a parrot on a perch, Joe appealed, pleading his unwitting case, with his first argument being that he did not know of such law, and second argument being that the parrots were pets and not wild animals caught from the wild.
The court, perhaps moved by his genuine shock or his passion for parrot-kind, showed a feather of mercy. His sentence was clipped down to a more manageable two-year stint.
Law In A Minute
As it turned out, Joe’s cherished parrots were none other than African Grey Parrots, a species that finds itself on the prestigious yet precarious Appendix I of CITES. For those not in the avian know-how, CITES stands for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora—a global agreement aimed at ensuring that international trade does not threaten the survival of endangered plants and animals.
This critical conservation covenant was born from a resolution passed in 1963 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and officially spread its wings in 1973, with the treaty taking full effect on July 1, 1975.
Now, China, being a signatory to this treaty, offers full protection under its law to the animals listed in the treaty’s appendices. Here’s where Joe’s feathered friends ruffle the legal landscape.
Joe’s first defense—that he was blissfully unaware of both the law and the endangered status of his African Grey Parrots—doesn’t quite fly in the court of law. Ignorance of the law excuses no one, and it’s every individual’s duty to be informed about the legalities, especially when running a business. Otherwise, legal professionals would be as redundant as a dodo!
His second argument posits that his parrots, being his pets, are somehow exempt from the definition of ‘wild animals’ and hence outside the scope of criminal law. Yet, this reasoning doesn’t pass muster either. The definition of ‘wild animals’ encompasses those in captivity, such as zoo specimens, those bred in labs, or those that have been illegally bought and traded. Domestication doesn’t negate a species’ status on the endangered list.
Legal Basis
Criminal Law
Article 341.1
Whoever illegally catches or kills precious and endangered species of wildlife under special State protection or illegally purchases, transports or sells such species of wildlife as well as the products thereof shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years or criminal detention and shall also be fined; if the circumstances are serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years but not more than 10 years and shall also be fined; if the circumstances are especially serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than 10 years and shall also be fined or be sentenced to confiscation of property.