NEW ZEALAND authorities have been accused of “vandalism” after they stripped the ivory key tops from an antique piano shipped into the country.

The 123-year-old upright piano should have been exempt from 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 New Zealand media.

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

The Herald on Sunday newspaper slammed the conservation department’s decision as “Kafkaesque red tape.”

Paton’s local MP David Seymour called the saga “outrageous” and said removing the ivory was “vandalism.”

(SD-Agencies)