Fourteen wild kestrels which were confiscated from smugglers by airport officials have been given a temporary home at Dubai Zoo. The birds were among 17 packed in small boxes without food or water on a flight from Pakistan to Dubai. Three did not survive the journey.

They will be allowed to recover from their ordeal at the zoo before being released back into the wild in October. Zoo chief Dr Reza Khan called for greater awareness in the UAE and neighbouring countries to stop the illegal smuggling of wild birds.

"I hate this business because it is so terrible and so unnecessary," he said. "These kestrels are not rare, but they must have been caught in the wild because they are very difficult to breed in captivity. I imagine they would have been sold to train children and beginners in the art of falconry.

"They were extremely weak when we got to them because they had been given neither food nor water during the journey. Three of them were already dead, and we immediately had to give the others saline to combat their dehydration. They have also been on a course of antibiotics to sort out any infections."

Khan said ignorance and greed were the main culprits of the trade. "These birds were probably caught while on a migratory flight because they are all adults of around the same age. Hunters set traps and nooses for them at this time of year because they are passing through and there are more of them around. Unfortunately, these birds have now missed their breeding season because they were trapped."

Khan said the zoo is already "full to bursting" and said having to accommodate animals from the smuggling trade is "extremely difficult". "It is so hard for us to cope with this because we are so short of space anyway. When these birds came we had to have a complete re-shuffle of enclosures just to fit them in.

"It's also expensive and a lot of work to keep them here because each bird requires a minimum of 100 grams of meat a day. We feed them chopped chicken breast meat taken off the bone because in the wild they would feed on small prey like insects and lizards, so they don't know how to cope with a big bird.

"The regulations to prevent this trade from happening in the UAE are in place. It's the ignorance of the traders that causes situations like this. I doubt any of them have even heard of the international CITES regulations to which the UAE is a signatory."

Khan added that the surviving kestrels would have a fighting chance in the UAE. "We'll release two to three birds near Mushrif Park initially and monitor them to see how they cope. We are then planning to take the rest to Hatta where the habitat is very suitable.

"However, we'll have to train them to kill for themselves before the release just in case they've forgotten how to do it. This part is always quite a challenge."