This came as a total surprise to everyone involved outside of the Council as there had been no warning or consultation with any of the concerned parties in either the parrot or reptile world within the Auckland region.
The PSNZ was galvanised into action as soon as the information came out. Many of our members breed and sell some or all of the parrot species involved and for several it is their primary means of income as they have well established businesses supplying both the NZ market and the export trade. The vast majority of our members though are hobby breeders or just enjoy keeping parrots or maybe only have one parrot as a pet. This change will affect every single one of these people. Birds on the banned list cannot be moved from the address they live at so there will be no more taking your bird on holiday with you or even dropping it off to a bird sitter whilst you are away. Trips to the vet are also in question as no provision has been made for this. As Auckland also contains the main airport, anyone wishing to send their bird by air is completely stuck – even if they don’t live in the Auckland region! Northland will effectively be blocked off from the rest of NZ as far as bird movements go and anyone outside Auckland wanting to sell or rehome a bird within the area will also be disappointed. As Auckland is by far the largest market for birds it means this will affect everyone in NZ without exception.
The parrot species involved are as follows: Galahs, Quaker (Monk) Parrots, Indian Ringnecks, Rainbow Lorikeets, Sulphur Crested Cockatoos and Eastern Rosellas. Why these particular birds have been chosen is a bit of a mystery although the Council have stated that they will compete for resources with our native birds. The Rosellas are well established and much loved throughout the area anyway and eradication of the wild population would be virtually impossible. They have been coexisting quite happily with our native birds for decades. Sulphur Crested Cockatoos are also established in several areas with little or no apparent effort to eradicate them by any council involved and no obvious competition issues with natives. Rainbow Lorikeets as nectar feeders may conceivably compete with some of our native nectar feeders but this has been shown time and again not to happen. The climate simply is not conducive to them proliferating in any numbers.
YOU MAY NOT:
- Move a bird from its current address, including taking bird on holiday or dropping off to a bird-sitter
- Take a bird to the vet
- Move a bird through the Auckland Region by land or air
- Sell or rehome a bird
- You will not be allowed to breed these species.
SPECIES INCLUDED IN THE BAN
- Galahs
- Quaker (Monk) Parrots
- Indian Ringnecks
- Rainbow Lorikeets
- Sulphur Crested Cockatoos
- Eastern Rosellas
PLEASE HELP US FIGHT THIS RIDICULOUS BAN
Currently the Society has been funding this through our reserved funds, Give-a-little, donations from pet owners and hobbyists and business sponsorship. We are hoping for your participation in this fight as we cannot do this on our own.
Any amount you can spare would be gratefully received. You can donate via:
Account Number: 02-0152-0528170-025 Reference: Pet Ban Donation
For more information, and the full documentation, visit our website
www.parrot.co.nz
Most parrot owners and breeders are extremely careful with their birds and go to great lengths to ensure they do not escape. Many birds are seen as members of the family and if lost huge and often successful efforts are made to recover them. For commercial and hobby breeders these birds represent a significant outlay and either constitute part or all of their income or the raising and sale of chicks helps with the costs and continuing ability to maintain their flock and increase their experience.
This is a lifetime hobby for many people and brings great pleasure as well as camaraderie with fellow enthusiasts. This ban would represent the thin end of the wedge for us as aviculturists as undoubtedly more species would be included on the list in the future and more councils would adopt it if ARC were to be successful. The cat ban seems to be failing both in Auckland and nationwide and many of us fear we are the next, soft target as we don’t have the funds or the numbers to fight it as effectively as the cat lovers have done.
Quaker Parrots (also known as Monk Parakeets) seem to have been included because of problems in other areas of the globe. They are relatively rare and harder to breed in NZ and any escapees have quickly disappeared without trace if not found by their owners quickly. The conditions here really don’t suit them very well but they are lovely birds to have as a family pet so breeders continue to do their best to fulfil the market requirements and most years will fall short of demand. Indian Ringnecks have been known to colonise areas of the UK and Europe and are very hardy birds so can cope with adverse and not ideal conditions. However, they appear to have failed to colonise properly anywhere in NZ even though they are one of the most common escapee birds as they are so popular.
The Parrot Society of NZ has taken action on several levels. As this was pushed through the council process without our knowledge and presented to us as a fait accompli we really had no option but to fight it in court.
To this end we went to the best lawyer in the business, Mai Chen of Chen Palmer www.chenpalmer.com to fight our corner. She is vastly experienced in this type of problem but obviously that experience is not cheap for us to purchase. We have set up a Givealittle page which you can access on:
https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/help-save-our-parrots-and-reptiles
and we have also opened a dedicated bank account for any direct contributions.
Account Number:
02-0152-0528170-025
Reference: Pet Ban Donation
So far we have several corporate donors and a number of individuals all wanting to help us fight and for that we thank them hugely. Sadly we have also had to cancel our next international convention as the money that we had raised and put aside for that has to be used for our legal bills. This is heart-breaking for us as our conventions have promoted both Auckland and NZ with visiting aviculturists from all over the world and have been hugely educational for everyone attending. Without being able to breed or keep birds here there would be very little point in continuing with a convention or indeed, the Parrot Society of New Zealand itself.
We would like to ask anyone reading this to help us to fight this unnecessary, unreasonable and unfair piece of council legislation. Please donate as much or as little as you can afford as every little helps at this time and we really do need all the help we can get. Paying straight into the dedicated bank account is preferable as every cent of that will go towards our fight. You can also donate to the Givealittle page but we do have to pay a percentage of your donation back to that organisation. Any money received over and above what is needed will be donated to the Kakapo Recovery Project:
www.doc.govt.nz/kakapo-donate
We really need to pull together to protect our parrots at this time so please help us to do that so we can all continue to enjoy our hobby for years to come.
WE DESPERATELY NEED YOUR HELP TO FIGHT THIS BAN!
We really need your support to preserve aviculture and pet bird keeping in NZ both now and for future generations. Thank you in advance for your help and please do feel free to pass this on to anyone that you may feel would also be keen to offer assistance. We need all the help we can get!
Account Number: 02-0152-0528170-025 Reference: Pet Ban Donation
For more information, and the full documentation, visit our website
Esther FitzGerald has made a special study of Galahs and keeps and breeds them herself. She has written a piece for the Society which sums up her expert opinion on their threat level to our native fauna. Here is here take on things:
Galahs and other similar birds are completely harmless animals both to the economy and to the Auckland environment, and much loved pets for many. Yet the Auckland Regional Council are trying to make it illegal to breed, trade, and free-fly them. This is based on none other than wild speculations that they could potentially become pests here if they got out. Those of us who have studied behavioural ecology and have actually kept and studied them for many years know first-hand that this will never happen. The times that it has happened were wild caught parrots that were released from ships as the people on the boats were trying to smuggle them into New Zealand and were on the verge of getting caught.
Captive parrots tame or not find people to save them when they get out in small numbers which is always the case. Alternatively they starve or get killed. Some of the council’s reasons for banning them are that people will dump them, they will compete with natives, and that they are hard to control. They also compare them to rats and possums which we all know have a completely different ecology. None of these reasons is accurate and will never come to pass. I speak mainly for galahs here as I haven’t done a lot of research on the others. But for fairness and freedom’s sake, none of them should be on the list.
The council have no right to take away our harmless hobbies and to micromanage how we run them. What’s worse is that they say they work with and for the people. So that should mean we all have the right to be seen, heard and understood by them on matters that concern us. But no, they refuse to even engage on the matter. They clearly didn’t consult any of the experts who have in-depth knowledge about parrot ecology. From what I’ve gathered it was the council (who know very little about animals and especially, nothing about parrots) who were pushing biosecurity to ban them. Their power trip has no limits. Anyone knowledgeable I’ve talked to, who has read the documents, knows how bad they are. A lot of it is ‘copy and pasted’ information from other species, is very poorly put together and is based heavily on speculation. This isn’t fair and it’s not okay. They’re picking on a minority group because they can. Yet there are other animals that cause actual damage to the environment and economy and they do nothing about them. Please help us stop this madness if you can because it’s only going to escalate if they get away with it.