Abstract
An four of the families whose members we traditionally call "Finches" have representatives in Africa south of the Sahara. Of the 321 mostly Western Hemisphere Emberizids, nine, all belonging to the genus Emberiza (Lindholm, 1994a) occur there. Twenty-six Fringillids, limited to two genera (Ibid. 1994a) are Sub-Saharan, the other 100 species living in Eurasia and the New World. Seventy of the 130 species of the Old World family Estrildidae are African (Ibid, 1994a).It is the final "Finch" family, the Ploceidae; Weavers, Old World Sparrows, and Whydahs, generally considered the most evolved of the four, that is most proportionately African. Only 30 of the 141 species do not occur on the Sub-Saharan African Continent. The European and North Asian Mountain Sparrows (Montifringilla sp.) and the Indian Ocean island Fodies Foudia sp.) are the only genera (out of 18) not represented there.
Ploceids, like the Birds of Paradise, Bowerbirds, and New World Blackbirds (Icteridae), compose a family in which sexual selection has had a profound effect, resulting in a marvelous diversity of breeding plumages, courtship displays, and nesting behavior, often carried to bizarre extremes. Many of the startling birds that have evolved as a result have long captured the imaginations of aviculturists, and some have been enormously popular and wide-spread cagebirds, with captive histories exceeding two centuries.
All of the traditionally popular species of Ploceids in aviculture ceased to be commercially imported to the United States after October 22, 1993, as a result of the Wild Bird Conservation Act of 1992. Because the range of these species includes the Republic of Ghana, which in 1976 received CITES Appendix III status for all the "Finches" which occur there, they are barred entry under the provision of the Act prohibiting the commercial import of birds listed on any of the CITES appendices. (Appendix III does not usually imply an "endangered" status in the wild, but, rather, the desire of a particular country to keep records of export of that species.) Though most of the African Ploceids are not covered by the Wild Bird Conservation Act, two other factors make their future import in any numbers...
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