I must agree with Mike Simpson about that being a strange selection of birds
on http://www.envirotalk.com.au/forum/index.php?showtopic=3959
Perhaps the Envirotalk poll is trying to test our ignorance:-)
I'm not TOO worried about the Quelea - the wheat industry would go mad if it
arrived here and I doubt an import proposal would go far.
But unfortunately there is a current (if not yet fully processed) proposal
to import the Eurasian Collared Dove Streptopelia decaocto as a cage bird!
This has spread from Iraq to Iceland in the last 50 years and invaded the
USA after some were imported as "Barbary Doves" (themselves invasive in
Alice Springs...)
The key site is
http://www.deh.gov.au/biodiversity/trade-use/invitecomment/index.html
There you can see there is a current touching application to import a single
pet African Grey Parrot with a statement that the African Grey "has never
successfully established a feral population outside of its native range".
Comments required by 29 June.
But if you search the Internet (that great source of truth and nonsense)
3,000 have been caught in the wild in the USA and there is an quoted report
from the Sunshine State Cage Bird Society's News Letter reporting 55
"Quakers" in the wild.
I know a few people keep an eye on these things and hope our and envirotalk
members will do the same!
Michael Norris
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