On 5 Aug 1998 Steve Murphy wrote:
"There is an argument that if we harvest and sell species which prone to
illegal harvesting (like Red-tailed Blacks), then we will swamp the market,
thereby reducing the incentive for illegal poaching."
But we will still have removed the same numbers (or more) from the wild.
So how does that help the birds?
A more persuasive, but still flawed, argument is that Australia should
allow the export of some common species and especially those involved in
crop damage such as Sulphur-crested Cockatoos. This, it is argued, would
substantially reduce the market price overseas thereby reducing the
incentive for the illegal trapping and export of them.
But it must be realised that while it might indeed reduce the trapping
pressure on those common species, it would simply cause the smugglers to
concentrate their activites on the rarer species which are less able to
stand the pressure.
Syd Curtis at Hawthorne, Qld
H Syd Curtis
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