Abstract
Gentle reader, look around you. You don't see many bird breeders do you? Yet there are twenty mzflion of them out there somewhere. They are lurking in secret darkened cloisters, houenng, protective arms outspread over their few pairs of semi-rare birds. Most avicultunsts could pass for heroin smugglers-the same shifty eyes, the same ambiguous mutterings, the same refusal to divulge details.
Where are the government-estimated twenty million aviculturists? More important, where are the literally millions of rare and beautiful birds that the government knows have been imported into this country during the last few years? Where did all the Amboina king parrots go? Where are the very rare Pesquets parrots that arrived in California a few years ago? How many have been bred? Where are they now? Of the tens of thousands of African finches that came through quarantine, how many are still alive?
I hope you are beginning to fathom my dismal point. The environmentalists and conservationists know the birds have been torn from the wild and pumped through U.S. quarantine stations. But then what? We say these lucky birds have
found a place in American aviculture and will breed freely so that not a species will be lost. But American aviculture is functioning under a murky cloud, a miasmal mist. All is dark. Not even the auicultunsts can see what is happening, much less the environmentalists. As things stand, when the bird imports are finally cut off, the seldom seen, furtive bird breeder will eventually wither and die and dry up in his hidden aviary and such birds as he had left will go likewise belly up.
Who wants American aviculture to end that way?
The time has come when the environmentalists, the conservationists and the aoicultunsts must all work together. Our basic goals are the same-the preservation of environment and wildlife species. We all know what the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, and the World Wildlife Fund are doing. They broadcast and publicize their work at every occasion. Nobody knows what aviculture is doing. If we are to survive we must change that. When these various groups see for themselves that we are indeed raising birds - that not all of the imported birds are doomed to death - then we will have established the credibility of aviculture.
Fortunately, the A.FA. has provided precisely the tool for the job. In this very magazine, dear reader, you will find an insert headed THE AFA ANNUAL BIRD REGISTRY. It is self explanatory and should be filled out completely by each one of us. It is absolutely essential that a body of data on captive birds be established and the A.FA. is unquestionably the organization to administer that data.
But you don't want your name known you say. Not to worry, the A.FA. has always been extremely protective of its members pn·vacy - but the data must be assembled. Even I, your humble servant, the most shifty and elusive of all bird breeders have agreed to fill out the form completely. It is now a question of aviculture dying in obscun.ty or proving to the world that we are engaged in an honorable and worthwhile endeavor. Please lend your help.
And now, my friends, on to another subject. Several good things came out of the 1980 convention. One of them most affecting the Watchbird is a slight change in policy (much to the satisfaction of our Science Editor Dr. Richard Tkachuck) wherein all articles of a scientific nature will be reviewed first by Dr. Tkachuck and then at his discretion by review panels of two or three experts in the specific field of the article. The experts and the authors wzll deal with
points of contention before we print the material and hence our scientific accuracy should greatly increase. Dr. Tkachuck always fostered this procedure which is part and parcel of scientific publishing. I, however, in ignorance and haste, occasionally ran an article without regard to procedure. When Dr. Margaret Petrak added her voice to that of Dr. Tkachuck I crumbled. I confess my sins. Henceforth and forever the scientific parts of the Watchbird will be handled by the scientists. Amen.
Now for the heart of this column, the letters. I have, alas, rambled to such an extent with my own mutterings that we have room only for the following.
Dear Editor,
I started breeding birds about three years ago beginning with cockatiels and moved on to red-rumps, Bourke's rosellas, and some conures. I feel I have had enough success with them that I am now ready to start raising some endangered species and do a very small part to help keep some kinds of birds from extinction.
I wrote to several breeders whom I knew to be raising scarlet-chested and tourquoisines I was surprised to find that most of the people were in the business of raising them for the profit of it. Some breeder's prices were fifty percent higher than others. I feel that many breeders have a total disregard for the purposes of the Endangered Species Act which is for the captive breeding of the birds to increase their numbers - not for someone to make a nice profit on them.
The average person like me cannot afford over a pair or two of these birds if any at all. Several of the breeders contacted are connected with the A.F.A. in some capacity. They seem to contradict what the A.F.A. supports.
In conversation with a friend who is a congressional aid I mentioned this subject. He said that some groups want the captive breeding endangered species rules to be made even tighter because many breeders were in it for the profit more than anything. He also said that these groups wanted endangered species raised by non-profit organizations only or to put all foreign birds on the endangered list to eliminate the chance of a big profit to be made on just a few birds.