Grupo Jaragua - Deja eso

Recent

GJ´s participation in the

SCSCB in The Bahamas

More info...

In water survey 2011 - Hawksbill Project

GJ is part of the Dominican MAB Committee

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Atabey Award 2011 in Conservation goes to GJ

News link... Another link...

¡Deja eso!

Campaign against the parrot pet trade

The parrot pet trade in the Dominican Republic is contributing to their extinction in the wild.

Learn about this issue

(you can click over the photos to view them larger and then hit the "back" button to return to this page)

We have a very special bird in the Dominican Republic: the parrot. It is an endemic species (= only found in our island). This is why it`s called the Hispaniolan parrot. Other islands in the Caribbean have their own unique species. Ours is only found in the beautiful island of Quisqueya, shared between the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Wild parrots used to be relatively common until very recently. Our parents and grandparents could easily see them flying over our fields and forests. The crossed the skly in beautiful green flocks, at the same time we could hear their noisy and cheerful calls...

Listen to the call of wild parrots (download .wmv)

But not anymore… This is because we have destroyed many of their habitats, that is, their home, which is the forest...

...And we have captured them to have them as pets in our homes. Unfortunately, many people find their ability to repeat words very amusing, and us Dominicans LOVE to have captive parrots at home. Sometimes we have them in cages or we cut their wing feathers to let them walk around the house.

This however, is prohibited under Dominican law: The capture, trade and/or possesion of parrots is banned by the Ley General sobre Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales No. 64-00. (General Environment and Natural Resouces Law). But the law is rarely enforced, and the parrot trade contitnues in the whole country. Thus, every year, the majority of nests laid in the wild are poached and the fledglings sold throughout the country.

This trade harms them very much, because most of the stolen fledglings do not survive. The majority die withing the first few days in captivity or during transport to different towns. The competition among parrot poachers is increasingly strong, each year chicks are removed at earlier times, without even having grown their feathers or opened their eyes. Its like taking away a newborn baby from its mother.

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Another problem is that to remove the fledglings, the nest cavities (which are reused from year to year) are destroyed. This reduces the posibility of nesting for many parrots, since there are not too many available cavities in their natural environment.

By removing the majority of fledglings produced in a given year, during many years, the parrots are not able to maintain their populations, let alone increase to previous levels. This is as if we killed every baby born in a human population during many years.

By keeping a parrot in our home, we are depriving it of the possibilities of reproduction during its lifetime. Even if we free it, this parrot could not adapt again to the wild, because it didn't receive parental care through which it would learn what to eat in the forest, where to find food, and how to eat food (break open seeds, etc).

If this pet trade continues, our parrots will dissapear in a few years. If you truly love parrots and / our the environment of the Dominican Republic, help us. Do not purchase parrots or accept them as a present, you will be contributing to their extinction. And spread the word: help us explain everyone the great harm this pet trade does to natural parrot populations.