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designed and comprehensive studies in the countries of origin would be needed to 

 achieve the first goal, and authorized $5 million in fiscal years 1993, 1994, and 1995 

 for this purpose. To date, orUy $1 million has been actually appropriated and these 

 funds were for CITES permits and law enforcement. There has been no request by 

 the Clinton Administration nor money appropriated for the WBCA for the past two 

 fiscal years. Thus, the population studies necessary to establish exotic birds as 

 sustainable and valuable assets in their countries of origin are not being conducted. 

 However, trade between these countries and foreign countries other than the U.S. 

 continues to the detriment of the wild populations. The WBCA is clearly failing to 

 achieve its intended conservation role. While the U.S. is no longer a consumer of 

 wild birds, the reversal of its commitment to fund the required population studies 

 leaves the U.S. directly accountable for the ultimate decline and extinction of exotic 

 bird populations. This reversal of stated intent has caused aviculture to have 

 serious doubts as to the real gocds of special-interest groups who endorse the WBCA 

 as "an exemplary piece of coriservation legislation that places the U.S., formerly the 

 world's largest cor\sumer of wild birds, at the forefront of efforts to conserve these 

 magnificent species". Aviculture disagrees. The only accomplishments have been 

 to mislead the American public and our CITES partners that U.S. aid would be 

 forthcoming emd to create a virtual total ban on all CITES exotic bird importation 

 into the U.S. We recommend that Congress: 



1. Appropriate the funds authorized or direct USFWS to allocate existing 

 budgetary resources to support and conduct sustainable-use research progrants in 

 exotic-bird range countries — studies which incorporate scientifically-sound 

 protocols. 



Aviculture concurs with the underlying premise of the WBCA that sound 

 scientific iriformation is required before exotic birds can be safely harvested from the 

 wild for the purpose of trade or any other reason. The requisite information is 

 uniformly lacking, including data necessary to evaluate the presently popular 

 concept of ranching (harvesting so-called excess production resulting from 

 placement of artificial nest boxes). Before any sustainable harvest strategy can be 

 evaluated, studies must be conducted which incorporate the scientific concepts of 

 controls and replication in periods both before and after a management experiment 

 is conducted. Such studies would require significant funding levels and time 

 frames on the order of 6 to 10 years. Few, if any, have been initiated and none of the 

 committed funding has been provided. Thus, the existing ban has no end in sight 

 and the birds and their habitats have, in essence, been abandoned. 



2. Conduct an investigation of the actual scope of the smuggling problem 

 involving the U.S. and an investigation of the USFWS enforcement activities. 



The only funds appropriated for the WBCA to date have been for law 

 enforcement. The perception that high levels of smuggling are occurring is the 

 justification for these expenditures. In 1987, Thomsen and Hemley (World Wildlife 

 Fimd/Traffic, U.S.A.) stated in Bird Trade... Bird Bans that as many as 150,000 parrots 



