These are interesting ideas. Especially in the event that the ban
does not happen we should be thinking how to help the birds from the
"back end." It's a slower process and probably less satisfying than
an outright ban, but if it will still help the birds until a ban can
happen, we need to steel ourselves and do it.
On 7/28/10, Elizabeth Young
And, while on the subject, I thought I'd repost Sally's description of the meeting's objective and see what ideas the group has-
*The idea behind this is to just see what, if any, common ground there may be from various people involved in the issue and to brainstorm ways all the different groups could work together to save animals and increase adoptions. *
I think there are two approaches- ways we could work together if pet sellers continue to sell birds and ways we could work together if pet sellers stopped selling birds. Here are some ideas that I (and I'm not sure which if any are good ones) but I want to jumpstart a discussion so here 'goes.
BIRDS CONTINUE FOR SALE 1. Pet sellers and staff could attend Mickaboo's Basic Bird Care & Avian Lighting classes and provide feedback on the material and Mickaboo could share what we've learned from our end of the "business" 2. Pet sellers could purchase "gift certificates" for each of their customers to attend a Mickaboo Bird Care class before purchasing a bird (say for $35/family) & Mickaboo could teach them the basics of up-to-date avian care (much more efficiently than pet sellers doing it one customer at a time) 3. Same for the Avian Lighting class 4. Pet sellers could do an audit of the foods and supplies they sell in order to eliminate unsafe/unhealthy products and Mickaboo volunteers could help 5. Pet sellers could agree to minimum cage sizes per species and Mickaboo could provide information based on years of seeing what doesn't work for birds 6. Pet sellers could contribute funds towards the care of unwanted and surrendered birds (whether to SFACC to divvy up amongst the rescues they use or to Mickaboo directly) and Mickaboo would have one more revenue stream to continue doing the work that needs to be done. 7. Pet sellers could publicize the many, many, many homeless birds that Mickaboo has available for adoption in their stores
BIRDS NO LONGER FOR SALE All of the above plus 8. Foster birds in their stores and help generate, educate and support adopters