Britain is pressing the European Union to stop the trade in exotic birds among all its 25 members after a parrot infected with avian flu was discovered and died in quarantine in the country.

The parrot, which was imported from South America, arrived in Britain last month and died a couple of days ago. Tests are continuing as to whether the strain of the virus it carried was the deadly H5N1.

The incident has prompted fresh concerns about the way the virus can spread. Previously, attention was mainly given to the spread of the disease by migrating birds, the Observer reported on Sunday.

"Any decision on restricting it (bird trade) is a matter for the EU. However, we are urging the Commission to review its position to take account of regional and area risks following recent reports," said a spokeswoman for the Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs.

"The bird trade is a real risk, in fact just as much as wild birds. We need to start cracking down on their movements," said Julian Hughes, the head of species conservation at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

"This shows just how little we know about the movement of birds into Europe and within the EU. The irony is that we know more about the movements of wild birds than birds in captivity," said Hughes.

In 2001, 28,500 exotic birds such as macaws and cockatoos were imported into the United Kingdom. By 2003 the figure had mounted to 83,000 -- a threefold increase. In the same year, more than 10,000 parrots were imported -- a 50 percent increase over 2002.

But these figures are believed to be dwarfed by the illegal trade in smuggled birds.

The EU is now the world's biggest market for wild-caught parrots.

A total of two million exotic birds are traded in the EU every year. The society believes that hundreds of thousands of birds are smuggled illegally into Britain every year.

Recently, there have been public concerns that the expansion of the EU has made it easier to smuggle exotic birds from Eastern to Western Europe. There have already been several cases of cross-border parrot smuggling between Bulgaria and Turkey.

Department of Food and Environment has pledged to increase the number of random searches, sniffer dogs and customs personnel as part of a renewed campaign to clamp down on the trade in wild animals.

Source: Xinhua