For decades Jeffrey Lendrum helicoptered up and rappelled down to aeries on cliff faces from Patagonia to Quebec, snatching unhatched raptors and selling them, investigators believe, to wealthy Middle Eastern falconers. This week in London, one of the most bizarre criminals in modern history goes on trial for the fourth time. Here is his story.
Just before noon on May 3, 2010, John Struczynski, a janitor at Birmingham Airport in the British Midlands, observed something peculiar. A balding, middle-aged passenger had entered the shower room in the Emirates Airlines first-class departure lounge and emerged after what seemed like a long time. But when Struczynski stepped inside the facility to check it, he saw that the shower and floor were bone-dry. Then he noticed, at the bottom of a diaper bin, a cardboard carton containing a single egg, dyed blood red. Mystified, and suspecting that something illegal was afoot, Struczynski alerted airport security.
A few minutes later, a pair of plainclothes counterterrorism agents accosted the passenger, led him to a private room, and searched him. Beneath his shirt, they discovered ribbons of surgical tape wound around his abdomen. The tape encased three woolen socks containing a total of 14 smallish eggs ranging in color from brick red to marbled brown. The man claimed they were duck eggs, and he offered the police a curious explanation: his physiotherapist had recommended that he wear the eggs pressed against his belly to force him to keep his muscles taut and strengthen his lower back.
At that point the police phoned Andy McWilliam, a veteran investigator with the National Wildlife Crime Unit, a branch of the British police established in 2006 to combat offenses ranging from badger baiting to ivory trading. From the officer’s description, McWilliam felt all but certain that the eggs were those of the peregrine falcon, the fastest animal alive, a bird of prey that nests, in the UK, in cliffs along the west coast from Wales to Scotland. Peregrines suffered a dramatic decline in population during the fifties and sixties, largely because of the widespread use of the pesticide DDT; by the early seventies, only about 350 breeding pairs were left in Great Britain. The pesticide was banned throughout the world beginning in the early seventies, and since then the population has climbed back to about 1,500 pairs. But the birds are still protected in the UK, and the theft of their eggs in the wild can be punishable by jail time.
A peregrine hatchling from one of Jeffrey Lendrum’s eggs (24/7 Media/Shutterstock)
“I suggested to the police that they arrest him on suspicion of possessing wild bird eggs,” McWilliam says, “and I told them that I’d be down there in two hours... (click the link for the rest)
Just before noon on May 3, 2010, John Struczynski, a janitor at Birmingham Airport in the British Midlands, observed something peculiar. A balding, middle-aged passenger had entered the shower room in the Emirates Airlines first-class departure lounge and emerged after what seemed like a long time. But when Struczynski stepped inside the facility to check it, he saw that the shower and floor were bone-dry. Then he noticed, at the bottom of a diaper bin, a cardboard carton containing a single egg, dyed blood red. Mystified, and suspecting that something illegal was afoot, Struczynski alerted airport security.
A few minutes later, a pair of plainclothes counterterrorism agents accosted the passenger, led him to a private room, and searched him. Beneath his shirt, they discovered ribbons of surgical tape wound around his abdomen. The tape encased three woolen socks containing a total of 14 smallish eggs ranging in color from brick red to marbled brown. The man claimed they were duck eggs, and he offered the police a curious explanation: his physiotherapist had recommended that he wear the eggs pressed against his belly to force him to keep his muscles taut and strengthen his lower back.
At that point the police phoned Andy McWilliam, a veteran investigator with the National Wildlife Crime Unit, a branch of the British police established in 2006 to combat offenses ranging from badger baiting to ivory trading. From the officer’s description, McWilliam felt all but certain that the eggs were those of the peregrine falcon, the fastest animal alive, a bird of prey that nests, in the UK, in cliffs along the west coast from Wales to Scotland. Peregrines suffered a dramatic decline in population during the fifties and sixties, largely because of the widespread use of the pesticide DDT; by the early seventies, only about 350 breeding pairs were left in Great Britain. The pesticide was banned throughout the world beginning in the early seventies, and since then the population has climbed back to about 1,500 pairs. But the birds are still protected in the UK, and the theft of their eggs in the wild can be punishable by jail time.
“I suggested to the police that they arrest him on suspicion of possessing wild bird eggs,” McWilliam says, “and I told them that I’d be down there in two hours... (click the link for the rest)
