Parrot Poaching in Brooklyn

[Wolf]

Hey guys look what I found! http://brooklynpaper.com/stories/29/45/ ... rrots.html
If you have ever wished that you could help stamp out parrot poaching and the illegal trade in these wonderful birds and you live in or near Brooklyn here is your chance to do something about this crime against the parrots.

[Michael]

i am not really convinced from this that people are actually taking the birds. This has been an extremely harsh winter and I think it rally thinned the population. We've been getting temperatures below zero. And that is Fahrenheit. I'm sure you could see kids trying to catch them or a father trying to humor his kids by trying to catch one. But considering how many cheap birds are available on CL and whatnot, this sounds like a pretty dumb thing to do.

[Pajarita]

This is from 2006 and parrots were still pretty pricey and not as abundant as they are now (you could hardly find any on CL back then) so it's entirely possible that there was poaching going on. As to whether it would make sense or not, Michael, let me tell you that if there is one thing you learn about human nature as you get old is that doing wrong things don't necessarily have to 'make sense', especially when it comes to young people.

[Wolf]

Precisely, it does not have to make sense or be profitable and if it was going on then it is very likely to be going on now. Besides people out with nets in the summer late at night doe not relate to cold winters in any fashion. I just think that keeping watch for this might be a good idea as I said if it was going on then it is probably still happening.

[Michael]

Didn't realize the date and assumed you were posting something new you came across. We'll see what this winter did do the population but I don't think it will be pretty.

[Wolf]

I did just find this, but still thought it to be relevant. The cold of this winter has no doubt had an effect on the population but these birds( monk parakeets)are from the mountains of Bolivia and Argentina so I would think that they would be accustomed to cold temperatures in the winter. And I also think that any real damage to the population would be more a result of the excessive amounts of snow this past year interfering with their finding adequate food. I could be wrong, but it is what I think.

[Pajarita]

Feral quakers worst survival difficulty is not the severity of the winters (not that I am minimizing the negative effect of such low temperatures in any way, mind you!) but the destruction of their nests by authorities done so late in the season (on purpose) that they don't have time to build another one before the bad weather arrives.

Just saw your posting, Wolf. These birds come from my birth country and winters are not as harsh as they are here (you do get freezing temperatures but it's always during the night and it doesn't really last long - we don't even get snow).

[Wolf]

Like I said I could be wrong. I have never been there and knew that I didn't know a lot about the climate other that id did get cold and it was mountains.

[Pajarita]

Actually, the ones in Brooklyn are not from the subspecies that lives in the mountains, they are the nominate monachus monachus. The ones that live in mountains are the Luchsi subspecies of which I have only seen a single one in captivity (one of my avian vets had one) or anywhere else in the States for that matter. They are much smaller and have a yellow band on their abdomen with completely blue primaries - they are also thought to be a separate species and are always been moved back and forth in the classification.

[Wolf]

I didn't know that either, thank you, I will try to remember that.