Mike
Another voice of reason although I can almost hear the cries of conflict of
interest from some quarters.
I always had aviary birds as a kid, mainly finches, as I always had a
desire to study birds. My mother delights in telling how, as a toddler,
she could always find me down at the chook pen should I wander off. While
living in Newcastle we had an aviary of Zebra Finches and King Quail for
the kids (that was my excuse anyway). These were good value and instilled
a love of birds in the girls although it could be argued that they may have
had this drummed into them regardless whether they wanted it or not. The
move to Melbourne has meant that we no longer have an aviary with birds but
we do have a hand raised, captive bred, Cockatiel that more or less has
free range of the house (shock, horror). This bird is as part of the
family, as many cats and dogs are in other households.
All the birds I have kept were aviary bred and bred prolifically
themselves. Most commonly kept birds are. Like it or not, many Australian
birds have been in captivity for so long that they now come in as many
different colours as Budgerigars. There are dozens of colour forms of
Zebra Finches while the Neophema's are rapidly catching up. Personally I
don't think the "new" colours that are available for Turquoise Parrots do
the wild birds justice but that's another issue.
The bottom line is I believe there is no place for the taking of wild
birds. The wildlife harvesting discussion appears to suggest that the
answer to the question I posed last week about the presence of any real
benefits for such a trade in birds is that none exist in this country, and
probably none elsewhere.
David Geering
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