Abstract
My dear fellow members, please consider for the moment that this very magazine now in your bird-stained little hands is the last Watch bird you will ever receive from the AFA. Consider, if you can, that never again will you have the Watchbird and its humble staff to kick around.
A dismal thought, Eh Wot? Where now will you have your Jun? When the magazine disappears where is your relationship with the AFA? Have these pages of paper been the only thread that connects you to the AFA?
For thousands of you the answer is YES. Shame on you. But shame on us also. We haven't been diligent in explaining what the AFA really is and how you can get involved. We intend, boureuer; to correct that error beginning now.
The AFA is a non-profit volunteer organization with things to do and goals to achieve. This means PEOPLE - yes, human beings (into which category most bird people fit - vaguely). People bound together into cohesive, involved units are what gives the AFA life.
If you think back to your old Boy Scout or Girl Scout days you won't remember much about the publication you received but you will remember individuals and the events you shared with them.
When you think of the Red Cross, you envision throngs of volunteers bound together in some urgent activity - people choosing to work together a Jew hours here and a Jew hours there to achieve a specific goal.
Hell's bells, folks, I even look upon the military as a volunteer organization since that is what I did back in the Korean era. A lot of time has passed but memories still flood my mind whenever I think of the good old 2nd Infantry Division. When you voluntarily give of yourself in an effort or cause, believe me, you feel good about it.
Now, I'm asking you to think of the AFA as a volunteer organization, an outfit staffed urtib volunteer workers from all parts of the country each doing bis or her bit for the overall benefit of auiculture. Think of the AFA in terms of people and projects. You 'LL find more satisfaction and fulfillment in your relationship with the AFA.
Trust me. If it were not so would I have told you?
Now that you 're all on fire to spend some time and energy as an AFA volunteer please turn to Executive Director Winters' words on volunteers on page 16. And I guess it's safe to tell you that this isn't really your last Watchbird. We'll keep the thing coming and we may even mail it a little late once in a while just to test your alertness and marksmanship.
It's time now to get on with a few letters that have come across my desk recently.
March 6, 1986 Dear Mr. Dingle:
I was very disappointed by three AFA-connected events during the past year. They have to do with basic philosophies in bird breeding and have reflected poor I y on A FA's efforts to demonstrate the value of aviculture in avian conservation.
The article on "Susan Lane's Suburban Flights" in the June/July 1985 issue of the Watchbird was interesting and showed a unique adaptation of aviculture to a particular living situation. However, I was disturbed by her plans to replace her blue and gold macaw male with a scarlet macaw male, apparently intending to produce hybrids. Is this a proper use for endangered species? Shortly thereafter, I attended the AFA Convention in San Francisco where I heard some otherwise informative presentations that promoted similar practices. Mr. Stan Sindel proposed and expounded upon the hybridization of lory species in order to introduce new color varieties from one species into another. Mr. George Smith, another speaker, supports another approach: deliberate inbreeding to ''bring out" recessive genes that might result in new color varieties. While such measures might be of little consequence in domestic species ( canaries, budgies, etc.) or in species of great abundance, in most exotic species such practices threaten the long-term viability of captive populations, and possibly of the species as a whole.
I am disheartened that fellow aviculturists would deliberately ( carelessly?) hybridize and inbreed exotic birds. This is especially offensive and unethical, in my opinion, when an endangered species like the scarlet macaw is involved. The attitudes shown make me feel, at times, that the conservation groups that are critical of aviculture are somewhat justified. How can we claim that we are concerned about the fate of avian wildlife when Catalina macaws - a non-species - become the objects of our pursuits? Can we honestly say we are working toward the long-term survival of our birds when we follow breeding programs that alter their natural genetic composition?
In her keynote address at the San Francisco Convention, Mrs. Lee Phillips, former AFA president, espoused the idea of aviculturists thinking ahead to the next century, to the establishment of captive, self-sustaining populations of various bird species. Putting this philosophy into practice would be both a hedge against future import restrictions and a true conservation measure in the (likely) event that wild populations continue to decline.
If this is, in fact, the philosophy of the AFA leadership, and if AFA truly considers itself ''dedicated to conservation of bird wildlife;' then individuals advocating practices contrary to the spirit of our organization should not be provided an open forum in AFA's official publication and meetings designed to enlighten. This will only encourage others to do the same and provide the detractors of aviculture with more ammunition. I would like to see the Watchbird initiate a policy whereby articles that promote hybridization or other similar practices are subject to some type of control or censure (rejected for publication, edited). The selection of speakers or the material they present should be subject to similar controls. At the very least, a disclaimer should be made stating AFA's disagreement with such practices. If this is not done, then AFA is not what it claims to be.
Sincerely,
Robert R. Gabel, Aviculturist Propagation & Laboratory
Investigations Section
Endangered Species Research Branch U.S. Department of Interior
Fish & Wildlife Service
Patuxent Wildlife Research Center Laurel, MD 20708