Posted 25 November 2006 - 02:16 AM
I really enjoyed the article, plus it brought up and emphasized an area in flytying that I had wondered and worried about, the depletion of the exotic bird populations. Unfortunately, many of the wild bird species are in decline. Somewhere along the line, they reach a point at which they can no longer maintain the population at a survival level, and they become extint.
In veterinary medicine, I treat many unusual and exotic parrots. In the past, most were caught in their native habitat and shipped to the U.S. for sale as pets. wild-caught birds seldom if ever make acceptable pets, and tremendous number died in transit. Now, nearly 100% of the birds I see are borne and bred here in the U.S. on large, and sometimes small, avian breeding facilities. Over a span of 30 or so years we have learned to do this well, and we are highly successful.
Why cn the same concept apply to the production of the feathers and skins used in flytying, or is this already done in the United Staes or other countries? There is always a learning curve for production, but once conquered, you have an unending stream of feathers and skins. I know many raise exotic pheasants, chickens, some parrots, and others for their feathers, either through feather collection or sacrifice and skin production. How about the much more exotic, has anyone tried those, or are most or all killed in the jungles and rain forests of the world and shipped to flytyers here and abroad? If that's the case, tying flies results in far too high a loss on the world's animal and bird populations.
I think the flytying world should be proactive, working on ways to produce the desired feathers without destroying the birds that produce the feathers many covet so much. Alternatives, as mentioned in the article, should be consired, adopted and used by tyers rather than purchasing skins and feathers that result in continued damag to the species that are least able to recover from the harvest stress.
Ray