I have the same concerns about the black market effect.
_____
From: mickacoo-bounces@mickaboo.org [mailto:mickacoo-bounces@mickaboo.org]
On Behalf Of monica deza
Sent: Friday, July 02, 2010 12:50 PM
To: Elizabeth Young
Cc: MickaCoo@mickaboo.org; General mickaboo discussion
Subject: Re: [MickaCoo] Clarification from Elizabeth
I agree that selling birds is terrible, and it seems that nobody but animal
rescues are looking out for what s best for the birds. However, I am a
little worried about some unintended consequences from the law. I may not be
understanding the law correctly, so please correct me if I am wrong. I think
that it won t be allowed to have birds in any pet store, the same way that
dogs and cats are not allowed to be kept in Pet smarts or Petcos, right? The
only thing that worries me is that those customers who only want a baby bird
that they can see right before purchasing it, may start going directly to
the breeder instead of the petstore and in that case, breeders will be
better off. The reason why that worries me is because in a pet store, it is
on the owner's best interest to show a parrot in a pretty clean cage, with
toys, and clean food and water. However, the breeder can keep them in
his/her house in whatever conditions because nobody can see them.
There are 3 types of customers for birds. (1) The ones that truly care about
helping a bird, and those will choose rescue, so the law won t affect their
impact on the sale of birds. (2) The ones that may be indecisive, and would
go to either. The law may make it harder for them to buy them in SF, so
hopefully these will choose rescue now. (3)The ones that absolutely want a
baby bird who you can play for 5 minutes before buying it. Unfortunately,
there is nothing we can do to prevent these people from buying a bird,
unless we banned breeding and selling altogether, which I wish was true.
Even if it gets banned, there will always be a black market for it, and I
would feel much better with the birds being in a Petco (where it s on the
owner's best interest to take care of them) than with them being sold in the
flea market or from the neighbor's backyard. As long as these people are a
big group and are willing to pay big bucks, I believe someone would be
willing to breed birds for them.
I am not saying that I support animal sales at all. I would love to see
animal selling and breeding being completely banned and most importantly,
correctly enforced. I am just afraid of a black market for them. I sure hope
that our adoption events, and the awesome job you guys do do inform people
about rescue will change their preferences towards rescues. Only when people
are not willing to pay the big bucks for birds, it s only then that people
will stop breeding. It s sad but true.
Thanks Elizabeth for all your effort, and I sure hope that this law ,
benefits the birds, and not create a black market for them.
On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 12:10 PM, Elizabeth Young