Bird Conservation
A recent paper by the Worldwatch Institute, Winged Messengers: The Decline of Birds, revealed that, "almost a third of the world's 330 parrot species are threatened with extinction due to pressures from collecting for the pet trade, combined with habitat loss." A 2001 study in the journal Conservation Biology entitled "Nest Poaching in Neotropical Parrots," concluded that, "Poaching of parrots from the wild is an economic activity driven by a combination of the market demand for parrots as pets, the large profits to the pet industry, and the rural poverty in many countries with wild-parrot populations.
Replacing the demand for birds as "pets" with a demand for preserving the species in the wild will reduce inherent welfare problems associated with captive birds while increasing the support of conservation efforts such as ecotourism that helps local people and protects wildlife by allowing people to see that birds are more beautiful in the wild.
Links: Wild Bird Trade
Links: Ecotourism/Conservation
