PARROTS PROHIBITED.

Otago Witness, Issue 3959, 28 January 1930, Page 61

PARROTS PROHIBITED.

1M PORT ATION TEM PO R A RIL Y STOPPED. AUCKLAND, January 21. It came as a shock to Mr R. White, Avho arrived on the Ulimaroa this morning, to learn that the importation of parrots into the Dominion has been temporarily prohibited on account of the outbreak of a my’sterious disease termed psittacosis (parrot fever) in America and Germany, from which one or two deaths have been recorded. Mr White has been trading in parrots from South America and Mexico for the last 21 years, and on the present voyage he has with him 150 Mexican green parrots for Nbav Zealand, Avhich, according to the Minister of Internal Affairs, will have to be quarantined. “In all my’ many years’ experience,” said Mr White, “ I have never seen a parrot contract a disease, and all I knoAv of the reported outbreak is what I have read recently in the press. The medical men in Sydney did not seem very perturbed about the disease, and I sold three parrots to Dr Russell Jones, of Coogee, who did not worry about the mystery’ in the least.” • Mr White brought 500 parrots out, leaving most of them in Australian cities.