Molly the magpie: Famous bird separated from dog best friend, sparking petition

globalnews.ca:

magpie are campaigning for Australian wildlife authorities to reunite him with his best friend Peggy, an English Staffordshire terrier, after the animals’ owners say they were pressured to surrender the wild bird.Molly the magpie was rescued as a chick by Juliette Wells and Reece Mortensen, a couple from Queensland who now run the “Peggy and Molly” social media pages. The couple’s videos document the magpie and Staffie playing and sleeping together, and one recent video even showed Molly imitating the sound of a dog barking.A post shared by Peggyandmolly (@peggyandmolly)But in an emotional video posted to Instagram, the couple revealed they “had to surrender Molly.”Wells said that “a small group of people” had been “constantly complaining” about Molly to the Queensland Department of Environment, Science and Innovation (Desi).

In Queensland, a license is required in most cases to keep an exotic or native bird.On June 13, Desi officers arrived at the couple’s door “wanting us to surrender Molly,” Wells said. “We refused, as he was thriving in the trees surrounding our property.”Mortensen said he tried to obtain a wildlife license but, “after a period of time I had to retract my application as it was a bit of a conflict to our page,” he said without elaborating on what the conflict was.“We did everything in our power to work with the department,” he said.After many months, Molly was surrendered on March 1.The couple said they were “devastated” and that the situation has been hard on their two dogs, Peggy, and her daughter Ruby, as they’ve “lost their best friend.”They encouraged their fans to write emails to their local MP and to the Desi office, pushing for an investigation into the Desi officer’s handling of Molly’s