Wildlife officials and nature lovers yesterday busted the long-time illegal trade in wildlife at the Kantaban pet shops.

The ugly face of the covert illegal trade in wildlife surfaced when forest department offi-

cials and wildlife lovers under police protection raided the shops in the afternoon. About a thousand birds, some of them critically endangered, and monkeys were rescued.

As soon as the rescue squad reached the spot, the traders started sneaking out their illicit booties. The Daily Star correspondent saw them quickly taking away at least one endangered slow loris and several mynas.

The traders slipped two rare eagles--one gray-headed fishing eagle and a

Bonelli's eagle—into a gunnysack and passed it to a street boy who started walking away.

But the forest officials caught the boy and rescued the eagles, one of which later flew away.

There were at least 300 parakeets of different species like slaty-

headed, plum-headed and red-breasted parakeets, about 500 munias, 50-60 endangered hill mynas and some purple swamphens.

Prof Anwarul Islam of the zoology department in Dhaka University, and Tapan Dey, conservator of forests who took part in the raid later took the birds to Dhaka University and showed them to the vice chancellor. As the Kantaban pet shops belong to the university, the nature lovers demanded that these shops be evicted.

In response, Vice-Chancellor AAMS Arefin Siddique said he would tell the traders that if they continue this illegal trade in wildlife, their permission to run shops would be cancelled.

Later, the vice chancellor released some doves, munias and parakeets. The forest department took others to release them in specified forests that would give them proper habitat.

Prof An warul Islam said the illegal wildlife traders at Kantaban are influential and they must be stopped to save the wildlife of the country.

Tapan Dey said he would do everything to stop the illegal trade at Kataban and said his department would keep an eye on the situation there.