Over 600 indigenous parakeets, most of them fledglings, were rescued in Durgapur from a bus headed to Kolkata from Allahabad on Thursday morning.
Four men have been arrested — the driver and the conductor of the bus and two men who were allegedly bringing the birds.
An officer of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) said they had received specific information that a large number of birds were being brought to the city to be sold.
Based on the tip-off, a team of officers from the WCCB and state CID intercepted the bus near City Centre in Durgapur around 11am.
“We stopped the bus and searched it. We found three cages loaded in the cargo hold of the bus. The birds were crammed inside the cages. Most of them were quite young. Their wings have not yet developed properly. Some of the birds had died. There were 658 live birds,” said Agni Mitra, regional deputy director, WCCB.
The birds were headed to several areas in the city, including Galiff Street in north Kolkata, where birds are sold on Sundays, forest officials said.
Trading in indigenous parakeets is prohibited under the Wildlife Protection Act.
Preliminary investigations have revealed that the men had boarded the bus at Allahabad.
The forest officials have stepped up crackdown on trade in birds, resulting in many seizures in and around Kolkata.
“But for each seizure, many more such consignments reach markets unnoticed,” said a senior official.
This is the time for parakeets to hatch and trappers often trap the hatchlings and fledglings from the nests using nets, an official said.
“Many don’t survive as they are often transported in nylon bags and are cramped into very small cages,” the official said.