Bad news regarding Orange Bellied Parrots

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Craig52
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Joined: 11 Nov 2011, 19:26
Location: victoria

Zippythedoublebar wrote:Moderators can we move this to the Political section
No, constructive criticism and debate belongs in this topic. :thumbup: Craig
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Tiaris
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Joined: 23 Apr 2011, 08:48
Location: Coffs Harbour

E Orix wrote:LML you obviously were not keeping birds in the early 80's, yes a long time ago.
Your state dept. nearly destroyed Aviculture totally when they commissioned
John Long to do a study and eventually print his findings(Introduced Birds of the World).
From that publication we looked like being hit with the Vertebrate Pest Act.
The publication was taken far too seriously and the Text Book Jockeys had a field day.
Australia was going to be over run by millions of birds and our crops would be eaten.
While I was quite wary of some of her actions and motives a Sydney lady called
Barbara Deveny rallied the people in NSW, and the major Avi Clubs of the day formed together.
We even had a protest on the steps of a town hall in Sydney. I can't remember where
but I flew up and spoke as well as the front person for the RSPA, head of Worths Circus
etc. Harry Butler joined in and assisted. Even the author changed his out look yet we
were lucky weight of numbers eventually won out and an election was close.
Just for interest, the book stated that here in Australia
96 specie of birds were introduced
32 species were definitely established
12 species were probably established
52 species probably or failed
Ducks, Turkeys and Chickens were established introductions as well as Zebra Finches being
released on Kangaroo Island plus others which totally distorted the situation.
The book is interesting reading and really shows how numbers can be twisted to suit someone
with an agenda.
The fight goes on and we are really fortunate Sam has become so involved
I met John Long at a consultative committee meeting in Canberra when we were fighting exotic species registration in the early 1990s. He was very apologetic to aviculture at the time & said that if he knew his book would be used as ammunition to regulate aviculture unduly he wouldn't have taken the job on. He was actually a very nice down-to-earth old bloke. He said was was simply commissioned to collate and document all known written material on unnatural bird introductions at the time.
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