New Zealand authorities have been accused of vandalism for stripping the ivory key tops from an antique piano shipped into the country by its British owner.



The 123-year-old upright piano should have been exempt from strict rules aimed at cracking down on the ivory trade because it was built before 1914.

But owner Julian Paton, an English heart disease researcher who emigrated to New Zealand with his wife and two children, was unaware he needed a special verification certificate for the family heirloom, according to local reports.

“We are disappointed and horrified as a family at the bureaucracy,” Paton told Stuff.co.nz, adding that they had “followed all the rules that we were told to follow”.

According to the report, the conservation department said the instrument was deemed by British authorities to have been illegally exported from the UK and illegally imported to New Zealand.

The Herald on Sunday newspaper described the department’s decision as “Kafkaesque red tape” that did little to enhance New Zealand’s reputation.

Paton’s MP, David Seymour, said the saga was outrageous and that the removal of the ivory was vandalism.

“I’m embarrassed as a New Zealander and as a local MP that this is how we welcome people, by confiscating their family heirlooms so their kids can’t play piano,” he said.

Paton, who will have to fit expensive synthetic tops to the keys, intends to fight the government order that he also pay for the removal and dumping of the ivory.

New Zealand is a signatory to the UN convention on international trade in endangered species, which seeks to protect many threatened animals and plants.