(A curious Brown-Headed parrot hit the “Send” button, which is how you came to receive a partial copy of this message.)

>"why do they go through the hassle of selling animals just to sell stuff"?

Rick French summarized the answer to this question by saying that “people will go to Berkeley” to get their bird and up-front supplies if animal sales are banned in SF. He was talking, of course, about Your Basic Bird on College Avenue. He is correct that the retailer which sells the bird usually gets to sell the cage, first batch of toys and food, sandpaper perches, do-it-yourself antibiotics, and any other crud they can tack on. One could counter this argument, somewhat, by stating that a store like Animal Company could sell more consumables if their customers were Mickaboo-educated, because these customers would be more likely to buy more toys, better food, play gyms, etc.

However, I do think that Rick has a good point about lots of sales volume potentially leaving his store without sales of live birds, and that, as long as Preferred Birds and Your Basic Bird, among others, are still in business, this will be hard to change. How Mickaboo can help him overcome this is somewhat of a challenge for two reasons. First, our approval process is more than they want to deal with, and, second, they guy is not making any friends within our organization, so I don’t think that many volunteers will be anxious to work with him. The first thing that needs to happen is for him to chill.

One talking point for the meeting might be that Mickaboo has been around for a long time, and has rescued thousands of birds (at least, over a thousand) and is not going anywhere, and that the handwriting is on the wall about the bird overpopulation crisis. In short, Animal Connection and others should, for their own good, stop being stubborn and seriously consider alternative business plans that don’t involve the sale of live animals and which favor rescued animals and strategic partnerships with rescue organizations. This is only going to become a bigger deal and I think that, whether they admit it or not, they know it. Will this sound like we are holding them over a barrel? They might perceive it that way. As others have stated here, our organization is being challenged and, well, the truth is on our side.

Regarding the question, “we want to go and say we won't collaborate with pet sellers,” I am inclined to say yes, unless they are selling exclusively rescued birds.

--VH