60 



- as originally proposed - would have imposed some requirements that seemed to be unnecessary 

 to achieve the goals of the Act. The goal of these regulations should be to ensure that captive 

 breeding facilities are capable of breeding birds of the variety and in the quantity that they seek 

 to export and that the facilities are not used as a means of laundering wild-caught birds. The 

 FWS has received extensive comments of the proposed regulations and we hope that the fuial 

 rules will be responsive to those comments and not raise unnecessary barriers to legitimate 

 captive breeding. 



Regulations have also been proposed for the approval of management plans to provide for 

 the sustainable harvest of wild birds in range states. WWF believes that the sustainable use of 

 wildlife can in some instances play a constructive role in conservation, by providing incentives to 

 protect both wildlife and the habitat on which the wildlife depends. Sound management plans, 

 including law enforcement schemes, are crucial to ensure that trade in exotic birds does not harm 

 wild populations. Indeed, WWF has devoted significant resources to efforts to help range states 

 develop good, scientifically based wildlife management plans. We hope the FWS will issue final 

 regulations that assure that any wild-caught birds imported to the U.S. in the future are harvested 

 pursuant to sound management plans with clear conservation benefits, but that the regulations not 

 impose requirements unnecessary to achieving that goal. 



Marking of Birds 



The WBCA authorizes the FWS to promulgate regulations requiring marking or record- 

 keeping of birds. Those provisions were included to address the serious issue of smuggling. It 

 is excessively difficult to distinguish between legally and illegally obtained birds unless the legal 

 birds are marked in some way. The marking issue consumed many hours of discussion during 

 meetings of the Cooperative Working Group on the Bird Trade. It was a contentious issue for 

 the Working Group five years ago, and remains so today. 



It is admittedly difficult to devise a foolproof marking system. It does not appear that the 

 FWS will use this authority in the foreseeable future, as establishing a federal marking system is, 

 for technical and logistical reasons, not realistic in the short term. WWF believes that because a 

 feasible marking system is not yet developed, the FWS should not promulgate regulations on 

 marking at this time. Instead, FWS should concentrate its attention and limited resources on 

 enforcing the Act's provisions regarding the import of wild birds in a way that does not impede 

 legitimate captive breeding programs. 



A ppendix HI 



Under CITES, a coimtry may act unilaterally to add a species to Appendix III. The effect 

 of such a listing is that exports of that species from that coimtry, and only from that country, are 

 treated as an Appendix n species, and as such must be accompanied by an export permit. Other 

 countries exporting the same species simply issue a certificate of origin of the specimen. We 

 believe that it was the intent of Congress that Appendix IE species would be treated as CITES 

 species for purposes of this Act only when they were exported from the coimtries that listed them 

 on Appendix III. The Fish and Wildlife Service had the same understanding and its regulations 

 reflected that interpretation. However the FWS was sued over the regulations and the court 



