[texbirds] Re: The Issue of Origin (short)
- From: Stenmead@xxxxxxx
- To: Fred_Collins@xxxxxxxx, texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 31 May 2012 16:55:20 -0400 (EDT)
I also agree with everything Fred and Ted conveyed. I did not read all
the responses and may repeat what has already been mentioned.
I do want to remind us of the banded Flamingo that has been on the
Texas/Louisiana coast for the last few years. Thanks to banding, this bird
can
be traced to Rio Lagartos, on the northern coast of the Yucatan. So we
knew it originated in a wild population, as did the Tropical Mockingbird. I
don't recall a discussion of how this Flamingo arrived on the Texas coast,
or, if it should/will be counted due to how it arrived on the Texas coast.
Has the Flamingo been accepted by the TBRC?
Stennie Meadours
San Leon
In a message dated 5/31/2012 2:36:02 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
Fred_Collins@xxxxxxxx writes:
For the record, I agree with everything Ted so eloquently stated.
I would like to make a point about the bird trade. I have kept parrots
since 1975 at least and have raised parrots since about 1978. At one point is
was an important portion of my income. I had, at one point, more than 175
parrots and an occasional other exotic bird or two. There are others on
this list that have even more experience than I, but I do know a little about
the bird trade.
Certainly prior to the 1990s and I believe the same trend continues today,
all import birds are either driven across the Mexican border (probably
more smuggled than legal) or flown legally into US airports. Those airports
have quarantine facilities for birds and all birds are held in quarantine
near these airports for 45 days. Houston intercontinental is a port of entry
for birds. These facilities are tight and monitored to prevent any bird
escaping or being removed prior to the end of the quarantine period. There are
well documented instances of crates of birds being dropped or damaged
before and after quarantine that would allow birds to escape. Escaped birds
would more likely turn up in the Woodlands and other neighborhoods in north
Houston rather than at Galveston or any coastal location. The bird trade in
the US peaked in the 1980s and has dwindled to a current trickle. I won’t
belabor why this is the case but there are only a fraction of the wild birds
brought into the US either legally or illegally compared to 1990. Birds
are fragile and the less time in transport the more likely the survival.
Shipping them by a slow boat from where they come is just not an economical
option. The vast majority of imported birds under any time or circumstances
are parrots and finches. Other species are very low ( a few hundred if the
best years) in number and frequency.
I am unaware of any birds being imported into the Port of Houston via
ships with a rare exception which I will mention. I have known a man, a Greek
sailor, who lives in Houston and for about the same span as my activity with
parrots has brought birds into the US. He did bring them all by ship
because they stayed in his cabin on a tanker and he took care of them. He was
able to export them through a loophole in the law that allows one to bring in
their personal pets. He also used the same loophole to export them from
their country of origin, usually a European county. Bird keeping is still
very popular there and most species including US species are actively traded
there. He once had a pair of Painted Buntings he had bought in Italy, I
asked him if he knew they were Pained Buntings and illegal to keep and he said
they were not but Parisian Finches and had the bill of sale. Obviously the
customs official at the Port of Houston did not know a Parisian Finch from
a hole in the ground. The inspector that would have known such a thing was
at the airport.
My point with this diatribe is this, any bird could be an import, maybe
the Painted Bunting you counted as a lifer, but the chance that someone
imported a Tropical Mockingbird and it then escaped or was put at liberty and
it
found its way to Sabine Woods is less than your Lotto numbers for the 500
million jackpot. And the chances of this happening in 2012 are only about
10% of it happening during the 1970-1990 period. Have we seen other species
with any frequency at all that suggest we are seeing a portion of escaped
imports? In the 1980s I would catch about four parrots a year in my backyard
that were attracted to my other birds. In 20 years of that type of
activity I never had one non-parrot show up. There was one pair of Laughing
Thrushes nearby but that’s it. I did have the first House Finch in Harris
County
show up about that time. Maybe we shouldn’t have counted it. They too are
in the pet trade.
Our current influx of cage bird escapes and establishments are Nutmeg
Manikin and Orange Bishop. Apparently large numbers of these birds are being
released instead of throwing rice at weddings of some ethnic groups. The
steady release of these inexpensive finches imported from Puerto Rico from
where they do not have to go through quarantine is the source of these birds.
They are established and free flying there and are trapped and exported to
the US. Other more unusual finches are sometimes with them and we see these
reported from time to time. They are centered in SW Houston where most are
released, but no Tropical Mockingbirds will be found among them, nor
Bahamas Mockingbirds because those would be illegal to export since they are
protected in Puerto Rico, not so the invasive finches.
To conclude, my opinion is that the odds of the bird being an escape are
lottery like, since only a handful would ever be imported or near imported
to start with. We would likely be seeing one bird of two, four or ten. The
chances of a native wild bird being one of 5000,000 or a million or ten
million flying to the north Gulf Coast are highly likely. I always go with the
most probable scenario.
Fred Collins
(281) 357-5324
Director: Kleb Woods Nature Center
Cypress Top Historical Park
Commissioner Steve Radack
Harris County Precinct 3
_www.pct3.hctx.net_ (http://www.pct3.hctx.net/)
Other related posts:
- » [texbirds] Re: The Issue of Origin (short) - Stenmead
