sarahkelly
Checking out the neighborhood
I found an African Grey parrot outside in some trees in Shenzhen, China almost a year ago. It has a closed leg band with letters and numbers, which apparently they do not do in China. And she (I think it's a she) said "hello" in English. I assume she was brought in by a foreign family and either escaped or was abandoned (common pet problem here). A search in the neighborhood and on expat forums for months has yielded no results in finding her original owners. After almost a year the bird is part of our family and we really want to keep her. Now we are in a position where we want to move out of China. Pet relocations services won't touch it without documentation. But we have no paperwork on the bird, no CITES certificate. China will not issue any such certificate or even a "healthy pet" travel certificate for a parrot, as they only consider dogs and cats as pets. So far all communication with local agencies has had the same result: turn over the bird to wildlife authorities. We are very reluctant to do this in a country that is not famed for its animal rights, and not native to African Grey parrots. Any suggestions anybody has to either get her out safely, acquire a CITES certificate for an African Grey, or re-home her to a good home in China are welcome! We are moving to Thailand, still within Asia, if that helps in the suggestions.