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ANIMAL

Runaway flamingo turns up in Bern’s historic old town

The Swiss capital received a surprise visitor on Monday night in the form of a flamingo.

Published: 26 June 2018 16:50 CEST
Runaway flamingo turns up in Bern’s historic old town
File photo: Depositphotos

Trams and buses were forced to stop as the pink bird wandered around the city’s Casinoplatz square, according to eyewitnesses.

Police managed to divert the flamingo off tram tracks but then needed half an hour to catch the animal.

It later emerged the bird was an escapee from the city’s Dählhölzli animal park.

Dählhölzli director Bernd Schildger said he wasn’t sure why the flamingo had decided to go on an evening excursion into the city.

“The scientific literature indicates flamingos stay in a group,” he told regional daily Berner Zeitung. When several birds remain in the same location for a period of time, the other animals stick around too.

“We have around 40 years’ experience with flamingos and that’s what we have seen. Obviously, this flamingo has not read the literature,” the animal park director said.

Schildger added it was currently not possible to clip the wings of flamingos at the animal park as the animals were brooding and could not be disturbed.

He told Swiss news portal 20 Minuten that around 20 to 30 percent of the flamingos at the park had their wings clipped, and this was generally sufficient to deter other birds from flying away, even though they were perfectly capable of doing so.

Read also: Swiss joggers frighten baby llama to death

ANIMAL

Paris authorities to shut down bird market over cruelty concerns

The Paris city council on Wednesday agreed to shut down a live bird market operating in the historic centre close to Notre Dame cathedral, responding to rights activists who called it a cruel and archaic operation.

Published: 4 February 2021 11:37 CET
Paris authorities to shut down bird market over cruelty concerns
Photo: AFP

The bird market on Louis Lepine square in the centre of the French capital has long been a fixture in Paris, operating close to the famous flower market.

But Christophe Najdovski, Paris' deputy mayor in charge of animal welfare, said that the market was a centre for bird trafficking in France while conditions for the birds were not acceptable.

“This is why we are committed to changing the regulations to ban the sale of birds and other animals,” he said.

The closure had been urged by activists from the Paris Animals Zoopolis collective who had called the practice of showing the caged birds “cruel and archaic”.

France and Paris have in the last months adopted a series of measures aiming to show they are at the forefront of efforts to protect animal welfare.

The government said in September it planned to “gradually” ban mink farms as well the use of wild animals in travelling circuses and dolphins and orcas in theme parks.

Parc Asterix, which normally has some two million visitors a year, announced last month it would close its dolphin and sea lion aquarium.

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