Rare bird egg smuggler case first in 20 years

In what is thought to be the first case of its kind for 20 years, a man has appeared in court accused of smuggling live, rare bird eggs out of the UK.

Jeffrey Lendrum was charged with climbing a mountain in South Wales to steal 14 peregrine falcon eggs from their nest.

The suspect, aged 48, was arrested by West Midlands Police counter-terrorism officers as he prepared to board a plane for Dubai at Birmingham Airport on May 3.

Lendrum was said to have had the eggs strapped to his body to keep them warm.

He was charged with four offences involving taking the eggs from a peak in the Rhondda and concealing them to evade export restrictions.

Lendrum was remanded in custody on May 5 and is due to appear in court later this month.
Twelve of the 14 eggs are believed to be alive and have been removed for incubation by a wildlife charity, with the intention of eventually returning the birds to the wild.

The counter-terrorism officers kept the unhatched birds alive by nestling them on their office computers and turning them regularly until wildlife rescue centre staff arrived to collect them.
This is believed to be the first offence involving the attempted smuggling of live bird of prey eggs out of the UK to be detected since 1990.

A man who obsessively collected rare bird eggs avoided a prison sentence last Friday, May 7.
Andrew Seed had 2,000 eggs from endangered birds in the UK and outside and was caught only after his employers found more than 5,000 emails on his work computer, bartering with suppliers of illegal bird eggs.

Seed admitted 15 charges and received a nine-month jail term, suspended for two years, and was ordered to pay £3,600 costs. His collection has been confiscated.