PARROT & BIRD WEBLOG from AvianLove.Com

A Retirement Villa for Chattering Birds
By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: April 29, 2006

Along with the morning sun each day, there climbs a riotous opera of screeches, shrieks and squawks along with the occasional wolf whistle, “What’s up?” and “I love you.”

Tucked in a remote river valley, separated from Tucson by an enormous mountain range, the sanctuary is a “life care facility” for some 450 parrots, cockatoos, macaws and other tropical birds.

With life spans that for some species can be 80 years or longer, many of the birds have outlived their human caretakers. Others reached the end of their productivity as commercial breeders. Most were deemed too ornery or skittish for adoption as pets and faced euthanasia.

“Nobody wants these older birds,” said Sybil Erden, who founded the sanctuary in 1998, noting that a parrot can take months or years to recover from losing a companion. “People call and say, ‘We’ve had a bird for two months, and it just doesn’t like us.’ ”

Ms. Erden’s goal is definitely not to socialize birds for another try with people. “We’re helping them learn to have bird friends,” she said. “Some of them have a hard time understanding that they are birds.”

Still, the enduring imprint of owners past, of decades spent in someone’s living room or kitchen, was abundantly audible on a walk through the sanctuary grounds.

Billy, a yellow-naped Amazon, delivered the extended monologue that staff members call a “one-sided phone conversation.”

“Hello,” he said as a visitor approached and then continued with considered pauses between phrases: “Uh huh” … “Yeah” … “O.K.” … “Then what happened?”

Ms. Erden, a onetime artist who has parrots tattooed across her back, opened the sanctuary in Phoenix but moved to this larger isolated location along the San Pedro River six years ago. It occupies an old pecan orchard, miles up a bumpy dirt road, through a rocky landscape of prickly pear cactus and thorny mesquites.

Wild javelinas wander onto the property in daylight, ignored by the resident menagerie of roosters, geese, goats, sheep and cows, each animal with a back story that bears out Ms. Erden’s admitted soft spot for forlorn creatures.

Sharing one aviary are some racing pigeons that had faced doom because they could no longer find their way home. The cherry-headed conure named Mingus and two other refugees from the feral flock made famous by the 2003 documentary “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” are also here. Physically handicapped, the three needed a new home after the squatter who tended them in San Francisco was forced from his house.

Two well-trained dogs protect the birds from coyotes and bobcats.

The larger birds are usually paired in rows of large veranda-covered cages. Some, mainly smaller species, inhabit two larger aviaries where they flock and fly, getting closer to their natural state. Ms. Erden hopes to build 10 more aviaries.

Many parrots are monogamous, bonding for life with another bird or, in homes, with a human. A top priority is helping them find a new companion. Self-chosen, companions are not necessarily of the same sex or species.

Milo, a green-wing macaw measuring three feet from head to tail, arrived nearly six years ago after being rescued from an unstable person’s fetid basement. Ms. Erden had already been looking to set up Rah Rah, a military macaw nearly as big, so she tried placing them by themselves in a large cage.

“The first thing Milo did was to say ‘Hello’ in a loud voice,” she recalled. “Rah Rah literally fell off his perch.”

Two days later, Ms. Erden said, the birds were perched side by side, and Milo actually had a wing over Rah Rah’s shoulder. Neither is friendly toward humans. But Rah Rah, who had never uttered English words, started saying the occasional “Hello” and “How are you?” Of course, talking with Milo’s accent.

Jasmine, a double-yellow-headed Amazon now around 10 years old, was given up by an owner who became infirm after a series of strokes. Here she bonded with Tabasco, same species, age unknown, and now the two preen and feed each other.

But beware to intruders. When Ms. Erden stopped to talk with Jasmine, Tabasco started biting Jasmine out of jealousy, a behavior these parrots exhibit in the wild to keep their mates from flirting with rivals.

Their mimicking skills are sometimes so acute that it is hard not to impute humanlike reasoning. As Ms. Erden neared Stinkerbelle, a small green and grey Quaker parrot, the bird cried out, “No, no, no!” pecked Ms. Erden’s finger and mockingly screamed, “Ha, ha, ha, ha!”

The last thing the sanctuary wants is to produce offspring. Sometimes the birds are seen having sex. But without appropriate nesting sites, they seldom lay eggs, and when they do, ceramic eggs are substituted until the parents lose interest.

Even as she works to expand and improve the sanctuary, whose $250,000-a-year operating budget is financed by donations, Ms. Erden worries about a potential flood of unwanted parrots as pet-owning baby boomers become infirm.

“We’re getting more calls from people in their 60’s and 70’s who need to give up their birds,” she said. “We don’t see an end to the problem.”

Original Article

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Fury over wind farm decision

By Jesse Hogan
April 5, 2006 - 5:14PM

The Bracks Government has attacked as “blatantly political”, a Federal Government decision to block a controversial 52-turbine wind farm plan on Victoria’s south-east coast.

The $220 million Bald Hills development was approved by the Victorian Government in 2004, but Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell today announced he was overruling that decision over concerns for the future of an endangered species of parrot.

A report commissioned by the minister investigated the effect of wind farms on four species of migratory birds and concluded one species in particular, the orange-bellied parrot, was at risk of extinction within 50 years.

“On the basis of the information that has been presented to me on the orange-bellied parrot, I have decided not to approve the Bald Hills wind farm,” Senator Campbell said.

“I understand that this will be a disappointing outcome for the proponents of the wind farm but it is very clear to me from reading this report that every precaution should be taken to help prevent the extinction of this rare bird.”

Senator Campbell’s intervention has angered the Bracks Government, with Planning Minister Rob Hulls claiming the Federal Government had ignored the project’s environmental benefits.

“The decision by Ian Campbell today is a blatantly political decision _ there’s no question of doubt about that. This is all about the Federal Government forsaking renewable energy to look after its fossil fuel mates,” he said.

“What he’s really saying is that in the report that’s been presented to him, there has been no scientific evidence of the orange-bellied parrot on the Bald Hills wind farm site.

“What there has been is some historical sightings, and also some potential foraging sites between 10 and 35 kilometres from the Bald Hills wind farm site that may or may not have been used by the orange-bellied parrot.”

A spokesman for Wind Power, the developer of the proposed Bald Hills site, did not return calls regarding the decision.

Senator Campbell first raised concerns in October 2004, putting the project on hold until the report on the likely impact on birdlife had been completed.

Tarwin Valley Coastal Guardians spokesman Tim Le Roy said he was “absolutely delighted” the project has been rejected, almost four years since he began the campaign against it.

“It was an unacceptable site from a fauna, landscape and community perspective,” he told theage.com.au.

“We were a bit behind at half-time when the State Government signed off on this thing, and was the Federal (Environment) Minister our last hope? No it wasn’t. This community was never going to roll over for this developer, but this (decision) has been very, very helpful.”

The report said there were only between 99 and 200 of the orange-bellied parrots left in Australia, and they were usually found within two kilometres of Australia’s coastline.

Even if only one orange-bellied parrot died each year as a result of flying into a wind turbine, it could be enough to tip the species into extinction, the report found.

Mr Le Roy said the 1500 submissions lodged against the project signalled dominant opposition within the community to the wind farm plan.

“There were 40 in favour and most of those came from Melbourne, so I think that the weight of public opinion in the community was opposing it,” he said.

theage.com.au with AAP and Peter Ker

Original Article

AvianLove Parrot & Bird Supplies

Avian flu and inhumane burning
In recent days, the Indonesian Agriculture Ministry has instituted a “sweep” policy of culling all birds within a certain radius of cases of avian influenza in chickens in local communities. Sadly, they have mixed all birds in this policy, which apparently includes some of Indonesia’s avian treasures — such as endangered parrots, cockatoos and lories — along with chickens, other fowl and pet birds. After confiscation these birds are burned alive.

This approach seems misguided and inhumane for birds and people alike for multiple reasons: First, it is inconsistent with scientific knowledge. Not a single well-documented case exists in modern world history of a large parrot contracting the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza. If Indonesian officials know of such a case, they should share it in the scientific literature.

Second, it is inconsistent with a scientific approach in which simple laboratory testing during in-house quarantine of the birds could identify the presence or absence of bird flu and spare the lives of many of these rare and endangered creatures. In addition, by not testing these birds, a valuable opportunity is lost to expand our knowledge about the epizootiology (the factors determining the spread among animals) of this disease.

Third, it is inconsistent even with the approach used in the largest zoo in Indonesia. When avian influenza struck Ragunan Zoo in Jakarta, parrots and cockatoos were spared unless they were proven to have the disease.

Fourth, it is inconsistent with principles which are fair to the people involved. For example, reports are surfacing of citizens being offered as little as Rp 10,000 (slightly over US$1) as “reimbursement” for seizing a Palm cockatoo (which is a protected species nationally and internationally and may sell for up to $25,000 overseas). This is less even than trappers receive for illegally collecting these birds in the wild. There are also reports of bribes allegedly going to the untrained “inspectors” whose job it is to seize the birds — in return for them turning a blind eye to the presence of expensive or rare birds in the homes.

Fifth, this policy is inconsistent with any policy of the current government claiming to support conservation of Indonesia’s vanishing species, since it sends a message to Indonesia’s people that these birds are disposable and not worthy of the efforts to save them. The unnecessary culling of such birds also makes a mockery out of antismuggling efforts.

Last, but deeply disturbing, it is inconsistent with humane principles of veterinary action. These birds are intelligent and are capable of suffering. To burn a parrot or cockatoo alive without anesthetic is inhumane.

Preventing a pandemic of avian influenza requires some severe measures. However, a rational approach would seem to be a war on bird flu, not a war on all birds.

STEWART METZ
Seattle, U.S.

Original Article

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Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 04/3/06
BY CHERYL MILLER
CORRESPONDENT
Jayne Halliday’s life is very full.

Of family, pictures of whom adorn nearly every available surface and wall. Of tchotchkes, running the gamut from holiday decorations to antique porcelain shoes, several boxes of which weigh down an incoming mail lady.

And of noise: from two small Maltese that more than make up for their size with their barks when a guest arrives, to 37 parrots, most of whom allow the dogs their due before unleashing their healthy vocal cords on that very visitor.

But Halliday only realizes how loud they are when she sees her visitor holding her ears.”I’m so used to it, I don’t notice it anymore,” admits the Lacey resident with a laugh.

It’s no wonder.

It all started innocently enough 14 years ago, when the last of her two sons got married, and rather than face an empty nest, she decided to fill the void with the real thing. So she bought her first two birds, Brettster and Brewster, Conure parrots, and brought them home.

Little did she realize that they were just the first of a long line of birds to come.

“It wasn’t planned, it just kind of happened,” she admits, as she adroitly maneuvers her way around the collection of cages that line the room.

She then adopted Merlin, or “Magical Merlin,” as she nicknamed the cockatoo, because he survived an owner who kept him isolated and in the dark for years because he was so loud.

“He didn’t have a good start,” she says as she gently strokes feathers that he used to pluck off in times of stress. “Now look at him — he’s so loving.” But it took her a full year to gain his trust, she says.

Magical Merlin wasn’t the only abused bird out there, she learned. There were others, like Maxie, an African grey who’d been found with a screwdriver in his wing, and Lucky, a mini macaw whose owner used to throw him against the wall in a drunken fit, both of whom she adopted.

And there were still others suffering from simple neglect. “Some people buy birds to be cool, and then once the fad is over, they lose interest,” Halliday says.

And sometimes, as in the case of Chris Biele, life and work obligations get in the way.

“When you have to give up your birds, you have two options,” says the Stafford resident. “Sell them and not know who they’re going to, or give them to someone you know.” Word had spread that Halliday was willing to take birds in, and she agreed to house all three of his: Numa, an umbrella cockatoo; Shiloh, a scarlet macaw; and Oscar, a green-wing macaw, whom he’d raised from an egg.

“She’s very compassionate,” he says.

And very attached to them. “I would never sell or adopt them out once I take them in,” she says.

In fact, she and her husband, Jim, built an extra room on their house in order to accommodate all the parrots comfortably. It’s a large, tropically decorated space, with parrot wallpaper, lots of windows and Halliday’s special touches: pictures, plants and tchotchkes.

All the birds are treated to cable television, music, surround sound, toys and bird stands to regularly exercise on.

“They have to have toys, instead of just sitting in a cage,” she says. “It keeps them from being bored.” She spends time with each of them every day, and lets three or four out at a time in order to exercise. “They know their schedule, they know when they’ll be coming out.”

And she knows their every move. Without hesitation she recalls each one’s name, history and personality quirks. Tango, a double yellow headed Amazon, knows five verses of the Kenny Rogers’ song “Through the Years,” while Angel, a rose-breasted cockatoo, loves attention and repeats “Look at me, I’m pretty,” constantly from her perch. And Oscar, Biele’s former bird, is actually a she, revealed the day she laid an egg.

“She takes amazing care of them,” says Dr. Richard Levine, a small-animal/exotics veterinarian at the Toms River Animal Hospital, who admits he’s never met anyone, save for commercial breeders, with such a large and diverse collection of parrots.

“The cages are immaculate, the birds are well socialized; she has individual toys and activities for them; and she knows each bird’s personality and quirks. Jayne has a natural gift for them.

“You have to have someone devoted like that to make that work,” says Levine. Otherwise, the birds would exhibit the behaviors that neglected birds do: “feather picking, screaming, not being able to be handled because they’re not used to it.”

Levine started caring for Halliday’s birds about seven or eight years ago, when she came in with one of them, and they naturally got to talking about the others in her collection.

Eventually they decided that Levine would go to Halliday’s home, making it less stressful for the birds.

House calls aren’t something he often does, he says, but “because she has a unique situation — in this case, it was better for the birds.” Now he sees them every four to six weeks; at each visit Halliday has a list of the birds she wants him to see, and he does everything from routine exams to grooming and more.

“I get up at a quarter to 5 in the morning in order to change all their papers, feed them, change their bowls” before she goes to work at a local law office, Halliday says. And at night, she and her husband spend another 1 1/2 hours cleaning up.

But she also says it’s a labor of love.

“I always told my children, “Explore your passion.’ ”

She says she’s not taking any more birds in at the moment; if one really needs a home, she has several friends she can refer it to if necessary.

But things can change, she admits.

“If I had more property,” she speculates, “I’d love to have more dogs.”

Original Article

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Parrots give him peace
MIKE KILEN
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

March 3, 2006

When Mark Bittner describes a spiritual awakening while looking into the eyes of a bird, well, the practical siren might sound for an Iowan or two.

But read his popular 2004 book “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” or see the documentary that has gained a cult following and you might understand.

Bittner, who is touring through Des Moines today and Saturday, is the 54-year-old whose lifelong search for meaning became clear when a flock of wild parrots showed up one day in 1990 in his San Francisco neighborhood.

He gradually became their friend, hand-feeding the birds, learning their habits, nursing them to health and burying them when they died.

“The biggest moment for me was one day when I was looking into their eyes, mulling over some philosophical ideas. A common idea that everything is God. And at that moment, I looked into their eyes, that thought passed through my head,” said Bittner, speaking by telephone from California.

“The reason it mattered is I now saw them as individual characters. I could now take them more seriously. It wasn’t just this abstract theory. It really tied a lot of things together.”

He suspects the flock started as a band of six renegade former pets, and had grown to a group of 20 or 30. Over months, he began to get closer and closer to them. Then one day, one of the parrots hopped onto his feeding bowl. Over time, he was feeding them out of his hand and taking the injured into his home. The birds even let Bittner pet them.

One parrot preened his beard and ate food from his mouth.

“Some people have said it’s anthropomorphism, giving animals human characteristics. But I realized the real problem is anthropocentrism, seeing human beings as the center of the universe.”

This we-are-all-one-in-nature view was the crashing moment of reality in his long, spiritual search.

He describes himself as a man who escaped a suburban middle-class upbringing to become something between a beatnik and a hippie.

“I was looking for something to give myself 100 percent to,” he said. “Before then, I saw myself as an artist and (the natural world) didn’t feel important enough. When I was devoted to the idea of being a musician, I excluded all activities that didn’t fit that idea.”

He didn’t make it as a musician. He barely had money to eat and slept on the street — until an elderly woman offered him a job as caretaker of a place on Telegraph Hill.

Then the parrots arrived.

“I felt stripped of everything so I was open to anything,” he said.

He began to study the birds. They were mostly red-headed conures, of the parrot family, and the occasional blue-crowned conure.

He gave them names and jotted down notes on their characteristics.

The blue-crowned conure he named Conner, a regal bird who was lonely and needed a mate but became a quiet leader. Bittner gained a special fondness for Dogen, who he nursed back to health, a bird so trusting that she would hop on his lap and share his bowl of rice.

There was Tupelo. The night before she died, she snuggled next to him as he read in bed.

Their deaths affected him deeply but he didn’t go overboard. He knew they were wild animals and it was part of the cycle.

Parrot flocks have been noted in 10 other states, he wrote. The natives of Central and South America, Africa, Asia and Australia could survive as non-natives, even in cool San Francisco temperatures.

What he didn’t know was how they seemed to show emotions — jealousy and anger. They showed fidelity to their mates and trust. They scolded, encouraged, shared and cared for others. They had no pecking order and called out to one another when they found food.

“I have heard from bird experts that I’ve broken a bunch of rules,” he said. “I gave them names. And I’m not 100 percent Darwinist.”

He doesn’t believe that wild animals act only in self-interest — their own survival. As an old beatnik/hippie, he doesn’t believe humans are that way either, unless culture tells them to be.

“I don’t believe in the creator,” he said. “I think all things are interrelated in a fluid, flexible way. It’s cause and effect. Not, ‘Have you been a good boy?’ I was putting on a cause and I got an effect.”

In the end, Bittner was simply a man with new feathered friends who taught him a thing or two. He eventually paired up himself — with documentary filmmaker Judy Irving, who heard of his story and made a well-regarded film on Bittner and his parrots.

Today, the couple still lives on Telegraph Hill — in their own home. The flock, he says, has grown to nearly 200 birds, although he feeds them only occasionally now.

In the middle of two years of touring for the book and film, he has lost track of identifying many of the birds but has kept watch over them.

A neighbor is trying to cut down the cypresses that the birds enjoy. Bittner protested by lying under the trees so they wouldn’t be cut down.

He has gained such celebrity that the mayor is involved in the dispute.

It’s clear to Bittner why the parrots have become a phenomenon and he a celebrity.

“There is a lot of sarcasm and irony in art and people are tired of it,” he said. “I don’t indulge in that.”

Without maudlin sentimental prose, he has described the behaviors of a very smart bird and one man’s connection to it.

“We are all one consciousness,” he writes to close the book, “and each finite being embodies a little piece of it. This is the preciousness of all that lives.”

Original Article

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The ‘Collateral Damage’ of the War on “Bird Flu.”

Pope Valley, California (PRWEB) April 4, 2006 — The deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza (AI) is chiefly propagated by commercial fowl living in close quarters; the role of migratory birds is less clear and still evolving. There is a documented species-selectivity in the sensitivity to the H5N1 virus; however, in the panic over a possible pandemic of AI, the indiscriminate culling of wild and pet birds is being increasingly practiced. These include some spectacular and endangered species of parrots rarely or never affected by the virus, providing an unnecessary further pressure for their decline towards extinction.

Not a single, well-documented case has been reported of H5N1 influenza occurring in a large parrot or cockatoo. The single case in the UK claimed to be that, turned out to be, in all likelihood, merely a misinterpretation of shoddy laboratory data, as reported in The Independent (UK) - Online Edition, on November 15 of last year. Despite this scientific fact, both Indonesia and the Philippines have recently taken to culling large numbers of these beloved but vanishing birds, even in the absence of any solid medical justification. In the Philippines (as reported in a Philippines Information Agency Press Release; March 1, 2006), 339 smuggled parrots were killed following confiscation, merely out of an imagined fear that they might carry AI. Although quarantine with testing for the virus could have excluded this possibility, these simple steps apparently were not carried out. Last year, a similar fate befell 500 parrots in the same country . (In 2004, more than 300 lovebirds were culled there merely because they had passed through Thailand in transit). Since these first 839 or so birds had all been smuggled from Indonesia, the shipments probably contained many parrots and especially cockatoos now endangered in the wild. Indeed, four of the world’s five cockatoos which have been given the highest level of protection by CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) are native only to Indonesia.

In Taiwan, 28 magnificent Palm and Moluccan cockatoos were slain at CKS Airport merely out of a similar fear that they might harbor the H5N1 variant of AI. However, test results returning only 24 h. later revealed that none of the 24 was infected (Taipei Times; November 4, 2004). These birds, which are protected by both Indonesian and international law, can sell for between $1500 and $15000 each in pet stores. Recently, Taiwan has hinted that it might cull imported birds only if they are infected (Korea Times; November 18, 2005); if enforced, this policy would be an important step in the right direction.

In Indonesia itself, Agriculture officials recently announced in The Jakarta Post that all birds–including pet birds–within a given radius of chickens found to be infected with AI–would also be culled. This policy is inconsistent with the Department’s own approach which it recently employed when the highly pathogenic strain of AI was discovered in the largest zoo. When avian influenza struck Ragunan Zoo in Jakarta, parrots and cockatoos were spared unless they were proven to have the disease. An additional advantage of testing prior to culling is that one thereby gains valuable new knowledge about the epizootiology (the factors determining the spread among animals) of this disease. The people suffer from this approach as well as the birds. The compensation paid to the bird owners for the loss of their property is paltry– for example, Rp 10,000 (slightly more than $US 1) has been paid for the seizure of a Palm cockatoo.

Worse still, these spectacular, sentient creatures–with an intelligence likened by some psychologists to that of 2 to 4 year human children–are being burned alive. This is a profoundly inhumane approach, inconsistent both with veterinary principles in most of the world as well as with Indonesia’s own strict limitations on the use of euthanasia in general. It is also inconsistent with any policy of the current government claiming to support the conservation of Indonesia’s vanishing species, since it sends a message to Indonesia’s people that these birds are disposable and not worthy of efforts to save them. The unnecessary culling of such birds also makes a mockery out of anti-smuggling efforts.

Ironically, there are organizations and committees which should be able to work together to solve this problem–but it is not apparent (judging by outcomes, at least) that the “right hand” knows what the “left hand” is doing on this issue. For example, within the critical ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), there is the Experts Working Group on CITES, the ASEAN Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Taskforce, and the ASEAN Center for Biodiversity . Logically, these groups would work together to fight the bird flu epidemic while simultaneously protecting endangered avifauna, but one sees no evidence that these groups are working in concert. Likewise, a Cooperative Initiative between the Philippines and Indonesia to reduce the illegal trade in parrots and cockatoos was established in June of 2004 and includes a plan for repatriation of confiscated specimens back to Indonesia from the Philippines (TRAFFIC Bulletin 20; February, 2005). Obviously, repatriation did not occur in the cases cited and it would seem to be an exercise in futility to interdict smuggling if examples of endangered species are seized by agents who then kill them.

Preventing a pandemic of avian influenza inevitably will require some draconian measures. However, a rational approach would seem to be a war on Bird Flu, not a War on all Birds. (That statement, of course, extends well beyond parrots). Tony Juniper pointed out in The Guardian that “there are many bird species at the brink of extinction, and flu could push them over the edge”–but it seems that it may be man, and not the flu, which is the graver risk to endangered parrots. Stewart Metz, M.D., and Director of the Indonesian Parrot Project stated that “some of the world’s most precious creatures– which are already vanishing in the wild due to man’s greed–should not be further threatened due to man’s refusal to apply reason backed by scientific principles. The effects of such a tragedy would persist well after this calamitous disease outbreak ceases.”

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With bird tower, TXU’s winging it
Dallas: Utility to feather prolific parakeets’ nest to protect its equipment
By KATIE MENZER / The Dallas Morning News

They’ve been outlawed in California and gassed in Connecticut, but in Texas, we’re building them penthouses.

The monk parakeet – those gorgeous but controversial green birds increasingly seen soaring through North Texas skies – are the bane of power companies across the nation. TXU Electric Delivery has struggled for decades to keep the prolific, non-native birds from building tangled nests in sensitive equipment.

While utilities elsewhere have garnered the unwanted attention of local animal-rights groups by killing birds or destroying nests, TXU is earning notice for today’s planned construction of a 40-foot platform near White Rock Lake designed exclusively for the monks’ sanctuary.

So is it Southern hospitality that’s won the bird a rent-free, high-rise home overlooking the lake? Or just good PR?

It depends on whom you ask.

“They’re one of the good guys,” Brenda Piper, president of the Quaker Parakeet Society, said of TXU.

“We don’t want to paint them with the same brush as we would the Connecticut folks.”

In Connecticut last year, power company United Illuminating outraged residents by removing 119 monk parakeet nests from its equipment, capturing 186 birds and handing them over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be euthanized.

Although the company’s methods were approved by federal officials and the Connecticut Audubon Society, a nonprofit animal-advocacy group known as Friends of Animals took the power company to court to stop the birds’ destruction. Lawmakers in the state have proposed a bill to outlaw the capture or killing of monks, also known as Quaker parrots or parakeets.

“There was a huge cry when it was found out that UI was eradicating the birds on transformers,” said Connecticut state Rep. Dick Roy, who wrote the bill. “We hope to find a way to adapt to them as they have adapted to our environment.”

But the question of how to deal with the bright green birds – known for their social natures and penchant for building nests in high places – is not black and white, said Marcy Brown Marsden, department chairwoman of biology at the University of Dallas and former president of Audubon Dallas.

The monk is originally from South America and was introduced into the wilds of the U.S. accidentally, either by people keeping them as pets, through crates of birds breaking during shipping, or through other mishaps.

Dr. Brown Marsden, who studies local endangered bird species, said she’s watched as the monk population has exploded in North Texas in the past 15 years. While she’s seen no evidence that the monks are pushing out native species or having a dramatic effect on the area’s ecosystem, she said, there is always a concern when a new species – known in the environmental world as “invasives” – flourishes outside its native lands.

Kudzu, zebra mussels and Africanized honeybees are all examples of invasive species.

So should the monk invaders be protected with parakeet platforms at White Rock?

Audubon Dallas is taking no stance, said president Larry Sall. The lake’s advocacy group For the Love of the Lake also has no official platform on platforms.

“The problem of monks as a non-native species has been one that people are worried about,” Dr. Brown Marsden said. “Non-natives can create a quick problem that can be hard to deal with once it’s out of control.”

But unlike kudzu or killer bees, the monk parakeet – almost the bunny rabbit of the sky – is hard not to love.

Monks build multichambered nests, often several feet high and weighing hundreds of pounds, that are the avian equivalent of apartment complexes. And while they live in tight communities – some monks mate for life – they allow other species of birds to nest and play with them.

“They are not aggressive toward other species,” Ms. Piper said. “They live in harmony.”

That’s why Mari Anne Mourer, a White Rock area resident who admits she’s no animal expert, found herself blocking the entrance of one of TXU’s substations with her car this month.

Ms. Mourer and her children enjoy watching the birds, and she said she was distraught to see TXU workers removing the monks’ nests from the power equipment on St. Francis Avenue.

“We love them,” she said. “They make a beautiful sound.”

She called her neighbors and City Hall and set up a meeting with power company officials to complain.

TXU officials agreed to erect a separate, 40-foot tower out of wood and steel – a design they had been planning since other community members protested the nests being disturbed last year – at the St. Francis substation today.

They also said they’ll place nonlethal deterrents, such as insulation, around their equipment to prevent the birds from nesting in the electricity towers. Officials said the nests grow large enough to cause fires and interruptions in power service.

“We certainly understand the sensitivity of the bird population of White Rock Lake, and we are working with the community to resolve their objections,” said Carol Peters, a TXU spokeswoman.

If the parakeet platform works, TXU officials said they would consider placing them at two other stations plagued by parrots near White Rock Lake, although they aren’t yet sure they have room.

But officials said they’d like the community to begin erecting its own platforms for the birds.

“We do feel this is a community issue, and we want the community to take ownership of it ultimately,” Ms. Peters said. “Our business is not birds. Our business is to deliver safe, reliable electric service.”

Original Article

AvianLove Parrot & Bird Supplies

The strange looks of a very odd budgie are winning hearts across New Zealand.Whipper the budgie’s extraordinary plumage, stunted wings and bizarre attempts at whistling like a bird have not impressed everyone.He was rejected by his mother and has been declared a mutant by his vet.But Whipper has made fans and admirers of everyone in the small New Zealand town of Winton who has laid eyes on him. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like him before… there’s just total disbelief,” said owner Julie Hayward, who has played host to a steady stream of curious neighbours. “He’s so cute how he’s got really fluffy, curly bits,” was one young girl’s reaction to Whipper. But his looks are not the only thing that make Whipper stand out from the crowd. “He doesn’t make the same sound as budgie. In fact he doesn’t make the same sound as anything really,” said Mrs Hayward. Whipper’s mother, though, was unable to appreciate her offspring’s unique curls and whirls. “She threw him out twice, so the second time it was too risky to leave him in there,” Mrs Hayward said.

Family friend Gillian McFarlane said: “He is just glorious. There was something right from the start that he was just going to turn into a little megastar.”

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Avianlove Parrot & Bird Supplies

Noah’s animals not wanted within city limits

24.03.06
By Mike Houlahan

The animals can go in two by two in Manukau City, so long as you don’t have more than 24 and none of them is a medium or large-sized mammal.

A new bylaw the Manukau City Council wants to bring in will control the number and type of pets its residents may own.

Under the bylaw, urbanites wanting a little bit of country in their backyards would be out of luck. Pet lambs, calves, horses, ponies, llamas, deer, donkeys, pigs and goats are now prohibited.

Cat lovers may have up to four, while residents can have up to six rabbits or ferrets. Alternatively, you can own a dozen of most types of birds, although large parrots are restricted to six per property.

Under the council’s dogs policy a licence is needed to keep three or more dogs in an urban area.

Environment and Urban Design committee chairman Noel Burnside said the change would tidy up a historic bylaw about the number of animals people were allowed to keep in their backyards, and was intended to ensure pets did not create a nuisance or damage property.

“Residents can still be prosecuted for their animals causing a nuisance, even if they have fewer than the maximum number allowed, but this gives us a guideline to work to which is relevant for 2006 and beyond.”

On the North Shore, people in urban areas can have two dogs, five cats and 12 birds, but no farm animals or roosters. People who already own ferrets, stoats and weasels can keep them, but cannot get another such pet if it dies.

Disgruntled animal lovers wanting to maintain their domestic menageries might want to consider moving into the central city.

While you need a permit to own more than one dog in Auckland City, you can have as many cats or canaries as you like, except for some parts of Great Barrier or Waiheke Island.

The city deals with any issues concerning animal control via a prevention of nuisance bylaw, with Waitakere City Council maintaining a similar stance.

* The proposed bylaw will be available for public consultation from mid-April.

Pet limits
* Cats: 4.
* Rabbits: 6.
* Ferrets: 6.
* Roosters: 0.
* Small caged birds, eg budgies, finches: 12.
* Large caged birds, eg cockatoos, macaws: 12.
* Pigeons: 12.
* Doves: 12.
* Chickens: 12.
* Ducks: 12.
* Geese: 12.
* Pheasants: 12.
* Swans: 12.
* Peacocks/peahens: 12.
* Maximum number of pets: 24.

Not permitted. Horses, ponies, llamas, cattle, deer, donkeys, pigs, goats, sheep, roosters.

Original Article

AvianLove Parrot & Bird Supplies

John West, owner of Cockfield Bird Farm, has been forced to close down after a drop off in trade following widespread publicity over bird flu

The deadly bird flu virus has claimed its first victim in West Suffolk, with a company which sells pet parrots closing today.
Cockfield Bird Farm has sold its last parrot, with its owners blaming media coverage of the spread of avian flu across the globe.

Since the virus hit the headlines, John and Angela West’s 20-year-old business has collapsed as people no longer buy pet parrots.

Mr West said: “The media has blown bird flu out of all proportion and has petrified Joe public.

“Our business has literally stopped overnight and has been decimated.

“In half terms, our farm was always full of children looking at parrots, but during the last one not one youngster came here.

“It’s a shame we have made the decision to close over something that looks like a storm in a tea cup.”

Mr West, 63, was fascinated by birds from an early age after he looked after a hawk with a broken leg when he was child.

He originally set up the farm with his wife to sell parrots to zoos and specialist suppliers.

He said: “Parrots are just totally fun, independent birds, which make people laugh when they copy humans.

“I will continue to raise my own parrots and you never know,if the bird flu scare disappears for good, we may re-open.”

Mr West said one person who worked at the farm for 15 years had lost their job because of the closure.

Bury St Edmunds’ response to any bird flu epidemic will be tested during a two-day exercise to be held in April.

The State Veterinary Service’s Bury branch is examining how it would respond to the spread of the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain to this country.

Adrian Rogers, from the State Veterinary Service, said: “We are receiving more reports of dead birds being found, but that is only expected with all the press coverage about bird flu.

“I am glad to say so far all examinations of dead birds in the region have found them to be free of bird flu.”

The British Trust for Ornithology, based in Thetford, said the warmer weather would mean a reduction in the risk of bird flu spreading as migrating birds left the country.

Anyone who finds a dead bird and suspects it died from avian flu can call the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ hotline on 08459 33577.
17 March 2006

Original Article

AvianLove Parrot and Bird Supplies