L&L Knight wrote:
I wonder if the estimates of the number of birds includes the
billions of chooks and budgies etc that we keep in cages. How does
the combined wild population compare to the combined captive
population?
Over the last 12 months the federal government has been reviewing the
keeping of exotic species of birds in Australia, and has come up with a
scheme to keep some control on those high priced species thought to be
at risk of smuggling
http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/env/2007/pubs/mr11oct07.pdf.
As part of that review I sent a submission to the committee examining
the problem and as part of that submission I came up with an estimate of
the numbers of birds being kept as pets and in aviculture in Australia.
It does not include commercial species of birds such as chickens and ducks.
The starting point was a BIS Shrapnel survey of the Australian pet
industry in 2006 which reported that about 9,000,000 birds were kept as
pets or in aviculture in 1,300,000 homes in Australia. Using that
figure, looking at percentage sales of different groups of birds from a
range of pet shops, and also using average ages of the different
groups, I arrived at the following somewhat speculative numbers of the
different groups of birds, as well as an estimate of the numbers being
bred each year to keep the population stable, or slowly growing (as the
BIS Shrapnel figures indicate is occuring).
Budgies - 1,800,000 birds with 360,000 bred each year
Cockatiels - 1,900,000 kept with 190,000 bred yearly
Native Parrots - 700,000 kept and 70,000 bred yearly. includes all
native parrots except budgies and cockatiels.
African Lovebirds - 500,000 kept and 50,000 bred yearly
Exotic Parrots (excluding lovebirds) - 900,000 kept and 60,000 bred
yearly. Indian Ringnecks would make up the majority of these - maybe 60
to 70%
Native finches - 1,300,000 kept and 270,000 bred yearly - the majority
are Zebras followed by Gouldians.
Exotic finches - 1,400,000 kept and 280,000 bred yearly. Note that this
breeding figure may be lower than reality since a large number of exotic
finches are now exported overseas, especially to the USA which bans the
importation of wild caught birds. These birds would "escape" the net of
my survey.
Canaries - 180,000 kept and 30,000 bred yearly
Others - 240,000 kept with 50,000 bred yearly - includes native and
exotic doves and quail.
How these numbers compare with numbers in the wild I will leave to
others to judge.
Just a final comment - the World Parrot Trust Director - Jamie Gilardi
- gave a talk in San Diego a few years ago that I heard and he came up
with a figure of 50,000,000 wild parrots in the world, and suggested on
rather shakier ground that there was a similar number of captive parrots
in the world. Given that in Australia we would appear to have
approaching 6 million parrots in the home, and we only have a small
human population compared to the USA and Europe, I would suggest that
there is a lot more than 50 million parrots kept around the world and it
would significantly exceed the numbers in the wild.
cheers,
Mike
Sunshine Coast
Queensland
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