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wildlife agencies in other states if we have any questions. However, 

 we do have a problem in that wild birds or birds from other sources 

 that have passed through several hands may be coming into New 

 Jersey without our ability to scrutinize them effectively. We also 

 have a problem in attempting to control the Wild Bird Act, wild 

 bird trade on a state level in that our citizens frequently go to 

 other states, purchase birds during their vacations and are not 

 being provided the required documentation that we ask of them 

 when they come back into New Jersey and attempt to register their 

 birds. My point here is that trying to do this on a state level is not 

 the most effective way to do it and it creates some inconveniences 

 for our citizens. 



I believe that it is going to be a lot more difficult to require prop- 

 er documentation from foreign sources, but I believe it is a nec- 

 essary function of the Wild Bird Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

 Service has indicated that apparently they are not going to require 

 banding of domestic birds, and I believe they may or may not re- 

 quire banding on wild source birds, however — and I agree that just 

 relying on banding alone is not effective in attempting to distin- 

 guish between a wild-caught and a captive-bred bird since a young 

 hatchling taken out of a tree in some foreign country can easily 

 have a closed band slipped over its leg. I will point out, however, 

 that in New Jersey we do require leg bands for any bird that is 

 now bred in captivity and any bird that is a pre-act bird or comes 

 from another state. If it changes hands or is sold, we require that 

 it has a butt-end band put on it. And the way we look at that is 

 that we can then identify an individual bird and trace it back to 

 its documentation. We have had many misconceptions and we get 

 lots of phone calls in New Jersey relative to our documentation re- 

 quirements. Once explained, the majority of people can easily meet 

 our criteria. And in all those conversations that I have had, and 

 they reach into the hundreds in the last couple years, no one has 

 expressed dissatisfaction with our reason for requiring such docu- 

 mentation. 



Like the Federal act, we have an exemption for people to import 

 wild birds if they need to breed birds for conservation issues when 

 they wish to increase the genetic diversity of the breeding stock. 

 We have had one applicant in the last year since our regulations 

 went into effect. My staff tells me it was the best application they 

 have ever seen and we did grant that permit to import a wild bird 

 for conservation breeding purposes. 



The third concern that I hear is that implementation of the Act 

 and its subsequent regulations will curtail the captive breeding of 

 birds in the United States. In New Jersey we found that not to be 

 the case. It makes sense that when you take away the source of 

 cheaper wild birds it makes it easier for domestic breeders to make 

 a living. Our consumers are educated. They understand the con- 

 servation issues involved in the Wild Bird Act and they understand 

 the animal welfare issues. They have expressed to me that the last 

 thing they want to do is buy a wild bird and become part of the 

 trade. The fact that we have reduced competition from wild sources 

 has caused our captive breeders in New Jersey to flourish. In 1991 

 we had approximately ten bird breeders that had applied for com- 

 mercial permits. This year we have approximately 50 people that 



