HARRIS & WESTRUP John & Jude wrote:
> My feeling from
> 25 years of involvement in aviculture until recently is that these birds
> were not in aviaries in Australia. In some states, foreign birds have
> to be registered with the state wildlife authority, as do native
> species.
The National Exotic Bird Registration Scheme (NEBRS) was set up by the
Federal Government several years ago now, and requires all those species
of exotic birds kept in aviculture that are not on an exempt list to be
registered with the Federal Government.
The list of exotic birds that are present in Australia is to be found at
the Environment Australia Web site -
http://www.anca.gov.au/plants/wildlife/ebrstop.htm is the starting page
- while the list of birds registered is in Newsletter 13 (although
numbers there are not the latest figures)
The exempt species of waterfowl are as follows:
Anser cygnoides Chinese goose, Swan goose
Anser anser Greylag and all domestic strains of
geese
Alopochen aegyptiacus Egyptian goose
Tadorna variegata Paradise shelduck
Cairina moschata Muscovy duck
Anas platyrhynchos Mallard and all strains of domestic duck
Those birds requiring registration and present in Australia as of the
13th June 2000 are as below.
Aix galericulata (Mandarin Duck - 221 birds held by 36 people)
Aix sponsa (Wood Duck - 10 birds held by 2 people)
Branta Canadensis ( Canada Goose - 82 birds held by 13 people)
Cygnus olor (Mute Swan - 117 held by 27 people)
Tadorna ferruginea (Ruddy Shelduck - 102 held by 26 people)
No other species are known to be currently present in Australia.
The waterfowl group of aviculturalists is a very small and specialised
group who all know each other and are familiar with what birds each
holds. Since the numbers of people quoted above also includes zoos, the
actual number of private keepers of rare exotic waterfowl in the whole
of Australia is very small. I have asked a couple of local (SE Qld)
waterfowl enthusiasts who keep such birds and am assured that neither
the Northern Pintail or Northern Shoveler are in Australian waterfowl
collections, so the possibility of these two birds being escapees can
safely be disregarded and ticks don't have to become crosses.
The Australian Shelduck is more problematic - my figures are somewhat
dated for NSW but in 1995 there were 28 birds registered with the NSW
NPWS. The possibility of an escaped Australian Shelduck probably could
be further investigated.
cheers,
Mike Owen
Queensland
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