A PET shop owner has been fined n4,000 at Portlaoise District Court for having an unlicensed parrot and a tube of glue trap.
Gardaí and National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) officers discovered the items during a search of properties belonging to Richard O'Brien, Clonminam Road, Portlaoise, on March 2, 2009.
The endangered parrot, a Military Macaw, was found in Bir
dworld in Portlaoise without a microchip, leg ring or appropriate paperwork. The tube of glue trap was located in a storage area.
Mr O'Brien claimed he was minding the bird for a friend who was preparing a new aviary. "I can give the court here today a 100 per cent assurance that an Annex A bird will never be allowed on my premises again," he told the court.
Judge Gerard Haughton said he was "not particularly impressed" by O'Brien's evidence. A five-month suspended sentence issued in February 2007 related to similar offences.
The case was adjourned from the previous week's sitting of the court, to see if the offence before the court breached the terms of his suspended sentence.
That previous court sitting heard the defendant had a number of previous convictions from a number of dates in the last five years and that the six month sentence imposed on November, 2007, which was suspended for two years, was for possession of goldfinches, yellowhammers and bullfinches.
He had previous convictions for possession of 200 tubes of gluetrap, of having protected wild birds in his shop, and having them for sale and for selling them.
Also in 2007, he had a military macaw without a certificate, and in 2006 had a scarlet macaw for sale.
