Butcher Birds

[gomer]

I would be thinking of the possibility of bringing in disease etc to my own flock.As a wild bird caught can bring in a lot of hidden nasties as we all know.But maybe these birds are threatened there and need help in geeting established in aviculture.A hard decision to make, glad i am not having to make it.

[Mattyboy]

Is it an option to return them to the wild?
But I really wouldn't want to be encouraging the trade in those birds.

[GregH]

Well inspite of the flooding I went into Manila yesterday and found out that the birds had already been sold on. They were outside my budget and expertise anyway but I suspect they are outside of nearly everyone else's expertise too. I can only hope that their new owner breeds the damned things. On the naughty side I did see that Indonesian stuff is appearing again at the market (violet & chattering lorries). I saw my first racquet-tailed parrot (blue-headed from Palawan) and even more sadly a Scopes owl amoungst the other illegal natives (Philippine bulbuls, silver eyes, orioles, hanging parrots, swamp hens, button quail,

On the more legitimate side I purchased a female mate for my sugar glider so now I can expand my Austalian holdings. What to do though if I'm ever presented with parrot-finches again? I know a guy that runs a wild-life rescue center - perhaps he can rescue them!

[jusdeb]

Im not into dobbing people in but if I saw illegal trading of birds Id be screaming at the authorities to do something , of course it is a different country so I dont know what can be done...

[GregH]

Deb the only reason the Cartimar traders are able to openly sell these illegal birds is that the police are complicit in the trade. It would be a brave soul that identified themselves to the police without a political allay. As a foreigner I'm excluded from political process and there isn't even provision for me to legally even own a zebra finch so I too am breaking the law and don't want to expose myself. The Philippines is amoungst the worst countries in world for corruption and the populace as a whole sees little value in compliance with wild-life trading laws when their main concern is getting money to put food on the table and getting thier kids educated to such a level that they can escape the country. That may be a little cynical but unfortunately such generalisations are true.

[jusdeb]

Yes Im aware of the vicious circle that happens in poorer countries thats why I mentioned different countries in my reply....being aussie means being free to jump on a soapbox every now and then so I have no idea of the politics involved in the illegal wildlife trade.
In a perfect world it wouldnt happen.

[finchbreeder]

In a perfect world everyone would have plenty to eat.
All our birds would be producing well.
Everyone would be disese free.
Every bird we bought would survive the move and settle down to breeding straight away.

Ah well we can go on wishing.
LML