Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Smile when you say that)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Indoor Antics
Message-ID: <43163@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 19 Jul 90 23:41:14 GMT
References: <332@spam.ua.oz> <674@mtune.ATT.COM> <339@spam.ua.oz> <1990Jul19.144321.5978@cbnewsj.att.com>
Organization: Out in Left Field
Lines: 26

duane@cbnewsj.att.com (duane.galensky) writes:

>why CITES prohibits the export of birds only to have them shot or
>poisoned is quite an isssue indeed.

CITES doesn't prohibit export of Gahlahs and the other australian birds that
are killed as pests. Australian laws do. The Gahlah isn't an endangered
species -- Australia simply prohibits export of all birds. There have been
movements for years to try to get this changed, the thought being that it's
better for some of those birds to be exported as pets then be killed
outright. Slow progress seems to be happening. Very slow.

>The
>down side is that prices for birds which are as common as pigeons
>and twice as pesty in australia run in the $3000 range in the US...

Which is one reason why there isn't more pressure from the bird industry in
the U.S. -- folks making lots of money breeding domestic rose-breasted
cockatoos (the local name for gahlah) don't want to see their very-limited
market hit by imports.

-- 
Chuq Von Rospach   <+>   chuq@apple.com   <+>   [This is myself speaking]

We tend to idealize tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested 
with losers and nut cases -- Patrick Nielsen Hayden