Indonesian police said they arrested a smuggler who hid 22 yellow-crested cockatoos and one green parrot in plastic bottles in order to get them through customs, local media reported on Monday.
Yellow-crested cockatoos are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).
Local media said they are each worth nearly $US1,000 ($A1,258).
"We arrested a man who brought two different species of birds - one yellow-crested cockatoo and the other a green parrot, and after that we search around the Tidar ship to check for any other suspicious goods," Tanjung Perak Port's police officer Aldy Sulaiman said.
"We found on the third deck of the ship two big plastic bags consisting of 21 yellow-crested cockatoos which are included in the critically endangered list."
Local media said the man was travelling from South Sulawesi to Surabaya, which is the second biggest city in Indonesia after Jakarta.
The IUCN website cites a survey in 2007 as saying that the global population of the yellow-crested cockatoo was at 7,000 and decreasing.
It added that its precipitous decline is mostly due to the species' exploitation for internal and international trade.
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