Finch Trends and Status in Australia

[gomer]

You dont see many redbrowed or blackthroats down here.The strange thing is you get bugger all for them aswell.

[AMCA26]

Plenty off wild Redbrows down Torquay way and down Pearcedale way. Heaps

[gomer]

I get them around the house here.The little blighters eat the chook food,I have to chase them out of the pen somtimes.

[dano_68]

I get them around the house here.The little blighters eat the chook food,I have to chase them out of the pen somtimes.

Hahahaha Gomer! I have the same problem with Crested Pigeons eating my chooks food - they will even go right into the coop to get at it!

[Jayburd]

when i was cleaning the aviary once 2 crested pigeons in a row got stuck in there with the door wide open (finches were out). flapped like maniacs...

[shox]

Dano,
I fully agree with your page 1 comments, you'll find that the most important aspect is your aviary set up for those endangered species. My suggestion to any of those willing to breed the endangered birds would be to get in contact with their local finch club, they will know the correct persons to get in contact with, learn from them for several months. if you have actively bred finches for a number of years, you will be surprised at how much you do know, and that you can breed these birds, its usually the cost that scares people off.

[Finches2011]

One positive thing that most could do is participate in the Finch Census currently being run by the National Finch and Softbill Association. This will at least give us quantitative information on the relative numbers of species being kept and how many people keep each species. It is a totally anonymous census. Census forms are available to anyone on the QFS website (http://www.qfs.org.au).

[glen]

Hi Guys and Gals

Not sure if I am the mister meaner here but many of those finches originate here in Africa and are plenty full, My question is that they might be endangered in Aus but not in Africa NOT YET

One of the bigest problems we have in Central africa are the exporters whom are catching litterally hundreds of thousands of finches every month and sending them to the USA and Europe, stats have it that around two thirds of these birds die due to the stress of the transport and handeling.

For and example I can currently buy Peters Twinspots from a "dealer" for around $100 per sexed (SS) pair however the dealer who brings them in pays US$ 5.00 each for them, this make me made and as I feel that this type of dealer is unethical to say the least as well as this type of "Wild Harvest" is not sustainable.

Shipments of Black crowned waxbills, Orange cheeks, silverbills, pearl headed S/bills of 3000-4000 land each month and again 000's die from the shock of comming straight from the wilds of Central Africa into averies a few meters big, those are the ones we know about here , what about those that go through UAE then on into Europe as they don thave the export issues that the other countires do, so who knows what happens in the dakest of Africa, all we know is that 100 000 lavender waxbills cannot be removed from the wilds each month and then 70k die and this is expected to be sustainable....

So these birds are at this stage not endangered but will be exctinct very shortly

My 2c worth, sorry if I got off the topic....

[Diane]

I have just tried to download the census form and all I got is a black page. Not a member of QFS, dont know if that makes any difference.

[desertbirds]

The census will only give a very rough indication of what numbers of some of the rarer species are around.If you held a very rare species would you want everybody to know that there is say 50 or 60 of the birds in your collection ? People would in most cases assume that the price should come down if there are greaters nuumbers around than we thought.I know of one breeder who didnt register what he had and honestly i can see his point.You can imagine putting years of work into a species to build numbers only to be offered a reduced price because suddenly people are equipped with the knowledge that there are far more birds around than previously thought.It would be great if we knew numbers of every species but it seems unlikely that will happen.