Lessons from the Past

[Craig52]

[quote="Uraeginthus"]Yes, I reckon you are all right. I suppose I knew that but got a bit clouded by the recent pessimism for these scarce species. As well as a "shallow gene pool", I think that we have only a limited number of aviaries in Australia. Therefore, there is a limit to the species variety we can keep and maintain.
Even if we are maintaining numbers, the rash of (often lovely!) mutations has taken aviary space away from true species too.

Regarding money. I can understand Craig's sentiments. It's a personal thing but I don't subscribe to it, myself. It's hard to say no to the chequebook collector. We should try. Birds going to NZ just because the price is better is pretty mercenary. If it's a big difference, I suppose the temptation is always there. No one argue when red parroties go overseas for that reason.
I think price for quality and condition is important. I remember back in the 70s, a fellow was selling his yellow peach-faces for twice the going price. Some people poo-pooed it. One look at his birds and you understood why they were worth it.

I hope we do learn lessons. Some mentioned the negatives of "looking in the past". The title of this thread underlines my feeling. We have to learn. Chase those mutations but keep space for the classic little birds of your youth. That's why I still keep Bourkes! WE as a group need to encourage those QFS programmes, clubs who "adopt" a species to keep going and other ideas. The Census is a great idea to monitor the general status of the common and middle-range species I guess.



I'm not being picky Tom but alot of people were up in arms over RFPF and Cuban finches going over seas.Prices of cubans more than doubled and RFPF prices also increased so as to not make them viable to the few that were sending them overseas and it worked in our favour.
The reason i moved on with GS's was not paper work/licence but because of the low gene pool and aviary space and the drive in me to go onto another specie like blue gouldians of which i was very successful with breeding in open aviaries,parent reared until they were all stolen one night.
From there i went into specialising with lesser redbrows,another rare aviary specie at the time and did very well with them also but very few people would pay $300 a pr for them which was less than half the price i paid a pr.
Now i specialise in a subspecie of crimson,once fairly common but now a very rare aviary bird and i am slowly breeding up enough stock to "get them out there" for others to breed and enjoy.
What i am saying is,it's hard work finding new blood for these birds but after numerous calls there are some breeders out there,be it very few that will help out with an odd bird to breed into mine and vise versa for theirs so all is not lost with this crimson finch but it was/is too late for the Green Stawberry. Craig

[finchbreeder]

Heartfelt thanks to those of you preserving the at risk species on behalf of all of the rest of us. Despite the lack of thanks your efforts are appreciated. I think there are many who would like to have 6 - 60 avairys each one containing a couple of species. So we could keep all the types that need to be bred appart from each other so they don't hybridise or fight. But for most this is a dream, so we have our 1 - 5 avairys with 3 or 4 species in and do what works for us and the finches. Every bit helps, it's just that some are better able to do what we all want to, for a number of reasons. Access to advice and assistance, cash, determination, knowledge, space, time. AFF is great for a couple of these.
LML

[E Orix]

As the years go by we lament what species we have lost.
I guess we also forget how people battled the establishment and what people did even before National Councils lobby groups etc.
Personally I would love to see a truly national control/lobby group, but sadly there are people with agendas,a single state policies which
are big hurdles to cross
Prior to all these original groups were formed all of the Australian Avis. nearly had the most draconian set of regulations dumped on them
with relation to all non Australian species. Between 1979 until 1981(until the book was published) a W Aust. Govt. Dept. commissioned a Mr John Long
in conjunction with The Agricultural Board of W.A. to research the history and distribution of birds released/escaped into foreign lands.
The book is an interesting read and states that 96 species were released in Australia, which included from memory , the common chook, goose and duck
obviously they were seen walking around farmer Joes farm yard but yes they were free(I guess) Anyway then our white coated book jockeys started to scream the sky is falling. So we entered into the battle to stop the Vertibrate Pest Act. once again the white coated book jockies were pushing the dangers of Australia's fauna being wiped out as well as our crops would be destroyed. Didn't matter that the species had been here for nearly 200 years and most of the established ones had laws passed to actually protect them.
Our luck changed when some of the faceless people decided that mammals should be included.
This was what we needed because all of a sudden it wasn't just us but the private Circus owners even the NSW RSPCA plus others.
The battle went in many directions but one incident still sticks in my mind. I guess it was early 1980 +/- when I was asked to actually participate
in a protest rally in Sydney on the steps of one of the large city Town Halls, on the stage were a representative of the Circus Group, RSPCA,
Private Zoos and several others including myself. We all had our say and it basically kicked the protest off.
From then the battle lines were drawn and so many put so much time into the final out come with councils, ABT etc being formed.
From what I was told as I had to move on in 83 that later John Long actually stated that the book was really not detailed enough to make policy from
so all traces of the laws died on the Eastern States.
This is a bit long winded but it shows what was going on in those early days and yes sadly we didn't have any Computer assistance and still had
some time to try and breed birds.

[TomDeGraaff]

I should explain that I was not aiming my comments at anyone in particular. If any offence was taken then I unreservedly appologise. No one has complained !!

It's funny how history repeats itself. In ten years, will we be lamenting the loss of something else because gene pools simply deteriorate ( it's called inbreeding depression)? In a "cup half full" comment, there are many species that our predecessors saved for us today. People working on subspecies and exotics now that are rare have my thanks too. There are people on this forum who have personally resurrected species for us to enjoy today.

Anyone care to guess what we might be in line to lose next? Saffrons? Red polls? Yellow hammers (if not already gone)? That census is so important to zone in on needy species. I for one don't want to lose anything else !! If we can make a list, we can check ourselves in 5 years and see how those birds are doing. Just a thought.

I still think the mutation fads have had an effect. It can't be helped and I like many of them myself. But we need to acknowledge that issue and work around it imo. After all, everyone likes something new. I reckon this is part of the hybrid craze in moving mutations to new species. There are no new species coming into aviculture to stimulate the experienced breeder so they are making there own, so to speak.

He talketh too much...

[Rosco]

No. no you don't talk too much. This has been an intriguing thread and I have learnt heaps.