Obsessed by exotic birds

Stanley Gover may face a retrial over charges of parrot egg trafficking. EUGENE BINGHAM and BRONWYN SELL report.

Amid the passengers coursing through London's Heathrow Airport, Stanley Gover cut a shambling figure with his limp and pronounced pot-belly. After checking his bags in and passing through security, Gover headed towards the departure lounge with his wife, Vera, for their Cathay Pacific flight back to Auckland on May 15.

The elderly Waihi couple looked unremarkable enough - just holidaymakers returning home. But HM Customs and Excise officers were about to swoop on Gover, their eyes fixed on his bulging waistline.

A strip search would soon reveal that Gover was flat-stomached enough. His paunch was created by the stash of 50 birds' eggs he had concealed on his body.

Beneath his red-check cotton shirt, a singlet covered a harness purpose-built for carrying eggs.

Gover had made the vest out of pieces of drainage pipe, mesh material and pantyhose. Against his body, it became an incubator for the precious load.

When the eggs hatched, they revealed the 70-year-old had been carrying a variety of parrots including three Illiger's macaws, a bird listed with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) because of its rarity.

Authorities were also staggered by the size of the haul - rarely before had anyone attempted to smuggle so many eggs at once.

Gover was arrested and charged with three counts of parrot egg trafficking.

In a London court this week, prosecutors portrayed Gover as a conniving, greedy smuggler intent on making tens of thousands by selling the birds in New Zealand.

The defence claimed he was nothing more than a misguided old man who had become obsessed by his hobby and lost touch with reality.

After a four-day trial, a jury was split over his guilt. Early yesterday (NZ time), a jury of nine women and three men in the Isleworth Crown Court told Judge Dorion Lovell-Pank they could not decide whether he was guilty.

Gover faces the prospect of a retrial.

The arrest and trial was a devastating ordeal for a man who was, by all appearances, quietly whiling away his retirement in the Coromandel breeding birds and goldfish. He had an unblemished police record, and had served three years as a policeman in his native Britain.

Gover came to New Zealand as a 30-year-old in 1961, telling the court this week: "It was just a country that appealed, that I wanted to see, so I did."

He toiled away at several careers, working variously as a motor mechanic, a poultry farmer and an antique dealer.

Gover expanded his interest in birds and fish, keeping budgies, canaries, quail, doves, rosellas, ringnecks, lorikeets and chickens on his lifestyle property.

Every day at 7 am, he could be found wandering around feeding his captive birds as well as the ducks and wild birds that would visit.

He was also excited by breeding: "When you breed them, you never know what is going to come out of the egg. It's exciting waiting to see what they produce, the different colours ... Wildlife in general and birdlife in particular have always had an attraction for me."

Gover began to show interest in rarer species and birds with colour mutations - birds bred for their unusual colourings.

He became a member of the Parrot Society and went to bird shows, though he was by no means high profile.

Through a bird show in Auckland, Gover was given a contact for a breeder in Belgium. Not long after, he set off for Britain, combining a chance to visit family with the opportunity to smuggle back to New Zealand a collection that would have made him the envy of bird enthusiasts across the country.

After several weeks in and around London, staying with a brother in Essex and visiting a dying cousin, Gover flew to Belgium to meet his contact.

He bought the eggs for £4200 ($14,500). Between May 16 and May 27, the eggs hatched out into three Illiger's macaw, one Derbyan parakeet, one yellow-bellied caique, one golden-mantled rosella, 15 ringneck parakeet mutations, and nine rosella mutations. (Fifteen of the eggs did not hatch and five chicks died soon after hatching.)

The Illiger's macaw species, which flourished in central-eastern South America but has undergone an "exceptionally steep decline", partly because of loss of habitat, appears on CITES' first schedule, a list reserved for species threatened with extinction.

"It puts the macaw in the same category as the likes of the kakapo and the Sumatran tiger," a New Zealand authority said.

Most of the other birds were unusual because they had been bred to bring out particular colours. A crimson rosella, for instance, that was normally blue and red had had all the red bred out of it.

The mutation process can be difficult and lengthy. Breeders in New Zealand would eventually have been able to produce birds with the same colours as Gover's, but probably not for years, authorities said.

Within New Zealand, conservative estimates put the number of parrot owners at around 10,000. But the number of serious enthusiasts is much smaller, making the market for exotic birds tough.

"In New Zealand, it's very, very difficult to sell a parrot for more than $5000, to be honest," said one breeder, who did not want to be named. "There are very few people with that sort of cash to spend."

But breeders who produce birds of unusual colourations can make some money.

And a strict ban on importing birds, of any variety, has put pressure on the market. South American species are rare and can fetch hefty prices.

"Because of New Zealand's isolation and the importation rules, a few people take it upon themselves to try and get bird species in this country that have not been here before. At the end of the day, it comes down to pure greed," said the breeder.

Customs authorities in Britain and officers from New Zealand's specialist Wildlife Enforcement Group believe this profit motive drove Gover to embark on his venture.

Beneath the drone of planes flying into nearby Heathrow, prosecutor Harry Bowyer told the court that Gover had talked about the birds in monetary terms when he was arrested. This, Bowyer said, indicated Gover was more interested in money than the birds.

Bowyer put the value of the birds in New Zealand at £60,000 ($208,000), though the defence put it at only £18,000 ($62,300).

"This was a cold-blooded smuggling operation for a massive profit," said Bowyer. "The motivation behind it was pure greed." He said it would beggar belief that a man who was once a police officer would be unaware of the legal implications, and said Gover would have been well aware that some of the parrots were CITES-listed.

But when Gover gave evidence, he looked every bit the harmless tourist he had wanted to seem at the airport.

As he walked uncomfortably towards the stand, he wore a powder-blue light jacket, grey trousers and brown sneakers. He looked genial, his thick, wavy grey hair neatly combed. Giving evidence, he came across as a misguided collector whose hobby had become an obsession, who was bewildered to find his old man's folly had landed him in court.

"When I was arrested, the whole world collapsed around my ears," he said. "All of a sudden, boom, my life fell apart. I was arrested, my wife was arrested, we were strip-searched. It was a traumatic experience ... I couldn't believe it."

Gover strenuously denied that he was acting for profit, and always maintained that he was acting alone - a claim dismissed by authorities.

"I wanted something special to fill my aviaries ... money didn't come into it," he told the court. In a statement to police upon his arrest, he said: "I'm too long in the tooth to worry about making money at this time in my life."

As for the Illiger's macaws, Gover said he had no idea they were on the CITES list. "It didn't occur to me that anything I did would come under CITES regulations. [When I was arrested] I thought, 'Gee, they think I've got eagle's eggs or falcon's eggs'."

He said he was horrified when he went to the library near his brother's house in Essex after the arrest to find them on the list.

In an unusual twist, though Gover maintained his innocence about the British charges, he admitted that he knew he would be breaking the law if he had brought the eggs into New Zealand.

"I knew it was illegal, I admit that . . I didn't feel I was doing anything wrong. I know why the biosecurity laws were there . . and I wouldn't do anything to upset the balance of nature in New Zealand. I respect those laws and I respect those reasons. I was taking a very responsible attitude to those eggs."

He said he intended to quarantine the birds on his farm.

New Zealand authorities are horrified by this attitude. Since the mid-1990s, there has been a prohibition on the importing of birds or eggs to keep the country relatively disease-free.

A Wildlife Enforcement Group officer said that diseases such as Newcastle Disease could be brought in with illegally imported birds. "Newcastle's is the bird equivalent of foot and mouth disease. It would be devastating not only for native birds but also for the poultry industry."

Gover's defence maintained he was no biosecurity criminal - just an obsessive collector with an eccentric delight in birds.

"He's a man with a passion for collecting birds which has caught him into terrible trouble," pleaded defence lawyer Matthew Paul.