Hi there birders,
This topic has been raised in recent postings here on Birding-Aus.
Does anyone have any hard evidence or data of the extent of bird poaching, egg collecting and the illegal trade of wild Australian birds and eggs?
My search of the internet has been somewhat fruitless with very few actual cases reported in the media or on web sites. Sure, some cases have been reported and perpetrators taken to court, but generally there appears to be little data available as to the real situation.
Is it a problem – real or imagined?
My curiosity in this matter was aroused earlier this year by a reader on my birding blog. She got very angry – indeed, abusive – about me writing about the parrots I saw in my garden and district, saying this was just advertising the locations of the birds to any poacher searching the internet. She implied that by writing about the birds I saw I was complicit in the illegal trade of birds.
Thankfully, over the last 5 years, I have only had her and one other difficult reader out of the 20,000+ readers of my blog every month.
Trevor
