Abstract
In February, 1990, my husband and I went to Jacksonville, Florida to the annual winter AFA meeting. I was actively fighting anti-avian legislation in the state of Michigan and was looking for support and any information that could help with our battles.
When we returned to Michigan I received a phone call from a voice out of the past. A person who used to board her Blue and Gold Macaw with me had moved to Texas to start a new life but didn't want anyone up here to know where she was. She told me she had gotten to know a lot of bird breeders in the state and was brokering for them. She had one breeder who had a good year and wanted to sell Bluefront Amazons for $225 each, Yellow Napes or Double Yellow-headed Amazons for $350 each. Of course these were all hand fed domestic birds!
This call came in on a Sunday and she needed the money by Friday to ship them on the following Monday or Tuesday. Of course the catch was that at this price she was selling in lots of twenty birds. Would I be interested? I told her I would have to call her back.
I then tried to contact our AFA President at that time, Phyllis Martin. I called and left messages with her at home and at her business, leaving my phone number, and what the call was pertaining to. I didn't receive a response from AFA in a timely manner, so I decided to try the USDA Hotline. I left a message in the morning and someone in the hotline office called me back later in the day. He, in turn, had a different official contact me. This person was concerned but really didn't know if their department could even help me. I let him know that I thought that they had a concern, after all I was on a committee that was rewriting pet laws in our state and these were issues "they" said needed to be dealt with and that that is why we breeders were willing to help out and that the least they could do was try to nail someone breaking their law.
They said they would have someone get back with me. In the meantime I kept stalling Ellyn by telling her I was trying to get the money up and quite possibly get other shops or friends to try to go in on the deal with me. Within a couple of days, an agent with Fish and Wildlife connected my phone to a tape recorder, and the sting was on. I contacted Ellyn and got availability of birds. How much, how many, what kind? In that conversation she quoted prices for over ten different species of psittacine birds. She told me she was not smuggling birds but that I would need to ' 'keep track of' ( quarantine) all the birds that she would send me.
During the course of the conversation, Ellyn bragged about another order for 350 macaws of which she was filling at a rate of four to six birds per shipment. Ellyn had moved from her house into a condo and that the birds were real quiet. She mentioned she was not going to keep any pet birds for herself. She complained of having too many birds and that they were making quite a mess. As she was speaking to me I heard a macaw making a commotion and I asked her if it was '' Kirby" her Blue and Gold. She said it was an adult Military Macaw that was being shipped the next day. She then gave me her address and requested that I hide it as she did not want anyone up here to find her.
Late in March, Ellyn and I spoke again. Almost every call was witnessed by an agent. Sometimes that meant avoiding Ellyn's call or spending long hours waiting with an agent for Ellyn's expected telephone call. In that conversation she offered to sell me baby napes at the one time low price of $350 each. I let her know that I was extremely interested as napes were hot items here in the pet business.
During that conversation she told me she had a partner named Gerald, and was a little concerned about the nine birds she had already sold in Texas. She said she would sell the next batch in Ohio because the USDA in Texas is so tough. She asked me to wire-transfer the money and she gave me the needed bank information.
I let Ellyn know I was apprehensive about mixing her birds with other birds. She said she had four Military Macaws for a week and that they had eaten a big hole in her rug. She said the only birds she had left were one hand-feeding nape and one mature nape.
Ellyn would talk about all the money she would have from her other customers and how they would have to hold on to it until they could make the "deal". Later on that day I called her back to let her know that I had $535 to wire into her account and that the other $500 would be wired the following week after the birds were shipped. I was, after all, strapped for money. Ellyn confirmed that I was supposed to be shipped three Mexican Red Heads and two Double Yellow-headed Amazons. She said that she had other outof-state orders for birds from different states, they just were waiting for some more money.