Home » News » Mexico: Victory for parrots!...

News

Mexico: Victory for parrots!

November 05, 2008, 12:18AM MT

By Sharon St. Joan

Law bans capture and export of wild parrots

Law bans capture and export of wild parrots

As reported on the website of Defenders of Wildlife, in mid-October, President Calderón signed into law a bill to outlaw the capture and export of wild parrots.

The ban, which went into effect on October 23, now protects the 22 species of Mexican parrots, who have been being trapped and removed from the wild at a catastrophic rate.

In 2007, Defenders of Wildlife and Teyeliz, A.C. published a report making clear the scope of the problem; each year somewhere between 65,000 and nearly 80,000 wild parrots have been being captured. These birds are trapped in order to be sold into the pet trade. However, 75% of the birds die before they are even sold.

Those who do survive to be sold have permanently lost their lives of freedom in the wild and are condemned to live out their lives in captivity.

The decline of some Mexican species of parrots in the wild has been as high as 95%.

The President of Defenders of Wildlife, Roger Schlicksen, commented that ecotourism in Mexico will also benefit from the passage of the bill. Many tourists travel to Mexico to watch birds, and in the U.S., he reports, there are 85 million bird watchers.

The import of wild birds from other countries was banned by the U.S. in 1992 by the Wild Bird Conservation Act; however, this has not halted the smuggling of wild birds from Mexico into the U.S. The European Union permanently banned the import of wild birds in 2007.

The ban on capturing wild parrots is expected to reduce the ease with which smugglers can obtain wild birds and send them across the U.S. border. The numbers of birds being traded within Mexico will be reduced as well, as the law is enforced.

It is hoped that this ban will save the lives of hundreds of thousands of wild parrots over the next few years and will allow these beautiful birds to continue to live in the rain forests.

The 2007 report, "The Illegal Parrot Trade in Mexico: A Comprehensive Assessment" by the Defenders of Wildlife, brought to light the scale of the capture of parrots and led to the drafting of the bill to protect the birds.

Of the Mexican parrot species, 90% are now considered at risk. Six of these parrot species are found only in Mexico.

The Defenders of Wildlife Director of Mexican programs, Juan Carlos Cantú Guzmán, has called the new bill a "milestone" and stated that it will now be possible to pursue the conservation of these birds and the recovery of their populations.

What you can do:

- To read the article on the Defenders of Wildlife website, please go to
http://live.defenders.org/newsroom/press_releases_folder/2008/10_14_2008_mexico_bans_capture_and_trade_of_wild_parrots.php

- To read more about parrots as pets, please go to the Avian Welfare Coaliton website
http://www.avianwelfare.org/issues/pets.htm

- To read more about parrots at Best Friends, please go to
http://network.bestfriends.org/parrots/news/

- If you are interested in adding a bird to your family, please adopt from a shelter or rescue instead of buying from a store. Find a parrot, macaw, or any number of other avian species on Petfinder

- To thank President Calderón for passing the bill to protect parrots, you may write to him at felipe.calderon@presidencia.gob.mx

- To thank the officials of the Environment Committee who helped get the bill passed, please write to
Diputado Diego Cobo Terrazas, diego.cobo@congreso.gob.mx
Senador Jorge Legorreta Ordoríca, jlegorreta@senado.gob.mx

Photo: Wikipedia / Red-crowned Amazon / Photographer Leonhard F / GNU Free Documentation License

Posted by Sharon St Joan, Best Friends Network

Comments

Posted November 11, 2008, 12:6PM by sharonstjoan

AnimalCrusader,

Thanks for your very wise comment!

Posted February 04, 2009, 3:47AM by yoyogongzuo

wow power leveling is a massively multiplayer world of warcraft power leveling online game, which wow gold means that thousands wow powerleveling of players from all over the wow power leveling compete for the Warhammer Gold of Azeroth. wow power leveling allows a large number of players to world of warcraft power leveling participate while making player versus player combat possible. world of warcraft gold allows its players the flexibility world of warcraft powerleveling of competing on an Cheap WARHAMMER ONLINE GOLD individual basis or forming teams and world of warcraft power leveling alliances. This suits both the lone player wow power leveling and the team player.
The wow power leveling provides extreme terrain, such as the burning 2 Moons Dil steppes and wow powerleveling formidable heroes, such as AOC Power Leveling Thrall, Cairne Bloodhoof and King SilkRoad Online Gold Magni Bronzebeard. You can create your MS Mesos own character from a combination of races, classes and wow gold professions. The races in wow powerleveling include:
• Dwarves
• Gnomes wow powerleveling
• Humans
• Night Elves RS Gold
• Orcs
• Tauren Gaia Gold
• Trolls MapleStory Mesos
• Undead
The races are divided into two wow powerleveling warring factions known as the Alliance and world of warcraft power leveling the Horde. A player can only communicate and world of warcraft gold create factions within his or her own race. Certain wow gold quests are designed specifically for certain SRO Gold races and classes.
The classes available in world of warcraft power leveling include:
• Druid AGE OF CONAN Power Leveling
• Hunter
• Mage
• Paladi

Posted November 06, 2008, 12:25PM by AnimalCrusader

There is a line drawn in the sand between humans and the wild. Upon this line,
we can stand on tiptoes and marvel at what we see - but that line should
never be crossed, for their sakes and ultimately, for ours.