Common Birds in Aviculture to be Placed Under Endangered Species Act

[xafsmom]

Common Birds in Aviculture to be Placed

Under Endangered Species Act?



The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is considering the possible listing of up to 14 additional parrots as "Endangered" under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA).



If adopted, the proposal would list the following species as "Endangered" under the ESA: umbrella cockatoos, moluccan cockatoos, lesser sulphur-crested cockatoos, red-vented cockatoos, blue-headed macaws, blue-throated macaws, buffon's macaws, hyacinth macaws, scarlet macaws, military macaws, shining parrots, grey-cheeked parakeets, yellow billed amazon parrots and green-cheeked amazon parrots.



Many of these species are being successfully bred in large numbers by U.S. aviculturists and are owned by many thousands of U.S. citizens as pets.



Once listed, a species could not be sold across state lines without the appropriate federal permit, a permit that does not recognize "pet purposes" as a valid permitting basis.


*There is more to the article that discusses AFA's stand-point on this decision. I have not posted that here.*

[FloorCandy]

Wow! I would think there are many other species out there that are more endangered, and are not being successfully bred in captivity. Not to mention that times are tough enough for the good breeders out there, and this will only make it harder for them, which will only make the whole problem worse.

[perchingbird]

Endangered status has nothing to do with captive populations, so the prevalence of those species in US aviculture has no bearing on USFWS designations. I'm curious why they are bothering with species not native to the US though, unless it is a way to increase penalties for smuggling them into the US.

... looking on the positive side, if they are harder to sell across state lines maybe the numbers of rehomed birds will go down? ><

[expressmailtome]

That would be horrible for bird owners. It would be a shame for people who would love to buy some of these species from great breeders in other states that they then could not.

Matt

[jdlilfan]

That is ridiculous.

[Rahni]

Well I'm glad to see that it's not just Australia that has ridiculous and totally off-the-planet bureaucratic crap laws regarding animals!
Really it should be irrelevant whether the species has become endangered in the wild, as they are non-native species. Restricting the movement of captive bred stock is in NO way going to help the particular bird in the wild in the Phillipines or wherever that bird is from.
If anything they should be encouraging further captive breeding of these species, so that there is a healthy, genetically diverse captive population which they could one day use to release back to the wild.

[perchingbird]

To lawmakers' eyes, making them listed WILL help them by making them harder to import (which CITES already does) and making penalites for smuggling more severe.

I did a quick search on USFWS site last night and didn't see anything come up about potential listing of the parrots, though some other bird species are being proposed. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Home A lot came up on aviculture/bird sites though. I'm curious if USFWS will add a new permit for the pet trade or some sort of policy.

It likely won't shut down trade of those species across state lines, just make it more difficult. Which makes -buying- one less of an impulse decision. And everyone that currently has these birds should be grandfathered in, I would imagine.

Before a species can be listed, the USFWS has to post the intent in the Federal Register (available online), and open a public comment period. Then they have to respond to all the comments.

It's a shame all our environmental laws get so tied up in The Process. The ESA was a wonderful step forward, but it definately has flaws in implementation. For example, USFWS has to waste its time designating critical habitat for every listed species. They are so behind in that. Most of their time and money is used on that instead of implementing recovery plans. :( And critical habitat designations don't really mean anything. People can get permits to go into them anyway. The ESA needs revised to focus on habitat types rather than species at this point. Heck, the bird I work with most, California gnatcatcher, is listed because of its habitat. Their population is doing pretty well! But coastal sage scrub is so patchy, and the populations so concentrated to a few areas that a really bad fire season could wipe them all out.

...

I digress. Back to parrots. I'll look some more today for info on this.

EDIT: Found the USFWS article. http://www.fws.gov/news/NewsReleases...2014F502125F11

We can thank Friends of the Animals for the petition to list. Comment period is 60 days from July 7 2009, so start writing. :D

[xafsmom]

Perchingbird: The thing is... As of 1992, there IS no more importation of those species (or any) LOL!

[perchingbird]

NOTE TO ALL INTERESTED PARTIES!

It's important for people interested in keeping those species in the pet trade to COMMENT on the proposal with their concerns to force USFWS to address how listing will impact the pet trade. The more comments, the better. Comments like "You shouldn't do that, you're ruining aviculture" or the like won't get do much, but things like "These species are very prevalent in the United States in the pet trade and aviculture. What processes are in place to avoid detrimental effects to our pet economy due to listing" or somesuch. But.. er.. more thought out and stuff. The point of the comment should be to force USFWS to address real concerns about what will happen if the species are listed, not to slam them for thinking about it and the like. :D

There are links on how to comment in the article I posted. Shoo! Go comment! Comment period ends uh.. I think tomorrow. 60 days after July 7.

[perchingbird]

Xaf's Mom, yeah it's already illegal to import, but now they can fine smugglers for violating the ESA as well as CITES! Take that!

><

I'm not saying it's a great reason. Just that is probably why.

... as an aside, smuggled parrots from Mexico are a huge problem. Those poor confiscated birds sit in quarantine, alone, for years. No toys, no interaction. :( Not allowed to be sold in the US, for a slough of reasons. Low priority for US government and no money to deal with it.