Sto­ry by SASCHA WIL­SON

Sev­er­al birds drowned af­ter they were thrown in­to the sea, when Coast Guard of­fi­cers in­ter­cept­ed a pirogue off Ce­dros, this morn­ing.

Three crew mem­bers re­port­ed­ly were de­tained, while sev­er­al an­i­mals—in­clud­ing mon­keys, macaws, bullfinch­es, and par­rots—were res­cued.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that at about 8:30 this morn­ing, the Coast Guard ves­sel was on pa­trol when they spot­ted the boat in the Gulf of Paria. It is be­lieved that the men were smug­gling the an­i­mals from Venezuela to sell on the black mar­ket.

All the birds and mon­keys are pro­tect­ed an­i­mals.

Re­ports are that up­on see­ing the Coast Guard ves­sel, the men threw some of the an­i­mals in­to the sea. The Coast Guard man­aged to save some of them, but sev­er­al par­rots and bullfinch­es per­ished.

The men were tak­en to Ce­dros Coast Guard base and are ex­pect­ed to be charged by Game War­dens.

Guardian Me­dia will up­date this sto­ry as more in­for­ma­tion comes to hand.