An increasing number of cities are passing bylaws and local ordinances that severely restrict your ability to keep parrots and other companion and aviary birds or that ban them outright. Because these laws occur at the local level and because they are perceived to affect a small number of people, they receive little notice from us, the general public and the media. However if not stopped, their cumulative effect will cause immeasurable damage to aviculture as we know it and inflict anguish on many caring and responsible bird owners.

Local city councils perceive these bylaws as being a good thing and pass them in the misguided belief that they are helping the environment, protecting endangered species and saving "exotic" animals from lives of misery and neglect. That is the "party line" that the animal extremists feed local politicians who are swallowing it up because of their own lack of knowledge about aviculture and its benefits to the environment and endangered species and to mankind generally.

Last year the City of Toronto tried to pass an animal control bylaw that was supposed to deal with dangerous dogs and roving cats but which also included a list of animals that could not be kept in the City in the future. The list of Prohibited Animals named virtually every species of bird including all parrots and other birds normally kept as pets and companion animals and for breeding purposes. This draconian piece of legislation was defeated only because of the dedicated efforts of literally thousands of concerned bird owners, breeders and aviculturists in Toronto and around the world. The importance of this victory in the largest City in Canada cannot be over-emphasized.

The City of Kitchener then passed in October a bylaw that prohibits the keeping of "wild caught" birds in the City. This is contrary to federal legislation, which allows birds that were legally wild caught in the past and their domestic-bred offspring. That bylaw was rammed through by City Council with very short notice (10 days) to the general public.

Many other communities in Ontario (Barrie, Peterborough, Ajax) and elsewhere, (Burnaby, Kamloops, Surrey, B.C.) have quietly passed bylaws that effectively ban parrots and other commonly kept birds. The Province of Ontario attempted to pass an Exotic Animals Control Act which would have done the same thing, but it died when the Legislature prorogued.

All of these laws are initiated by animal extremist groups like the Animal Alliance of Canada, ZooCheck, International Fund for Animal Welfare, PETA and others, whose sole objective is to prohibit the use of animals by people for any purposes whatsoever. They purport to act out of interest for animal "welfare" or "rights" but merely want to return everything to a state of nature, regardless of the consequences. They have released domesticated animals to die in the wild in the misguided belief that "a few minutes of freedom is better than a lifetime of captivity."

They sit on local committees that draft the bylaws and have been thanked specifically by the provincial MPP who proposed the Ontario Bill. They are very well organized and politically active and have access to all levels of government; local, provincial and federal.

It is time that everyone who owns birds, all pet owners, breeders, and other aviculturists, do the same. We have to start taking an active rather than a reactive role in our local governments.

The animal activists have volunteers in every community who identify sympathetic Councillors and approach them with proposals for this type of bylaw. Their Councillor encourages the others to support him and a Committee is formed, generally dominated by the animal activists, to draft a bylaw. The individual councillors do not have the time to do everything themselves and this kind of delegation is common. The next thing you know, the Committee proposes a very restrictive bylaw which everybody at City Hall thinks is just fine because they have not had any participation in the process or thought out any of the collateral issues.

In the meantime they are being fed the animal extremists' propaganda. By the time we find out about this and get involved, everybody at City Hall thinks this is a great idea and are shocked that we would even criticize it.

We have to be better prepared in the future. At Toronto we had about three weeks warning that the Board of Health was going to recommend their draft bylaw to City Council. The animal extremists had a year to prepare it. At Kitchener we had only three days notice of the public hearing at which the Committee was going to table the bylaw!

Everyone who owns, breeds and sells birds has to become involved in this battle. We need volunteers in every community to set up our own program of political influence. We have to do the following:

Get Informed

• Contact your local City clerk and get copies of their animal control bylaws (which can be under different names, animal control, exotic animals bylaw, etcetera.) Read it and familiarize yourself with its effects on you.
  
• Get a bird owning lawyer involved and have him review it and determine its practical implications. (This is important because he will work for free!)
  
• Visit City Hall, get to know the City clerk and get put on a mailing list for all new legislation and proposed legislation affecting birds and animals.
  
• When reading your local newspaper, watch for notices of proposed bylaw changes posted by the City because this is the only public notice they give. Read any news stories dealing with issues of animal control with a very critical eye for mention of any proposed legislation.

Get Involved

• Get appointed to the committee that deals with animal control in your community. This is where you will find the animal activists exercising their influence. If there is no formal committee, find out who manages animal control and where bylaw initiatives dealing with animals come from.
  
• Call your Mayor and local Councillors. The most effective way to influence government is to contact each councillor, particularly in your own ward or area, and speak to him or her directly. Express your concerns about ill-advised and poorly thought out bylaws that have far reaching effects beyond merely controlling dangerous animals or trying to protect the environment. (Always be polite, do not attack them, call them stupid or crazy. Remember, you want them on your side and you do not want to alienate them.) It is a good idea to organize and write down your thoughts before you speak to them.

Educate your local politicians.

• Explain that endangered birds are not being taken out of the wild for pets and have not been for over a decade. Point out that all birds now being sold and kept as pets are domestically bred by reputable breeders and aviculturists in Canada.
• Point out how aviculture helps society and how domestic breeding of parrots and other birds eliminates the trapping and smuggling of wild ones.
• Point out that pet and aviary birds are not an animal control problem (which is all that local governments should be concerned with) and that they do not run around biting people, messing up sidewalks and lawns and otherwise causing problems in our communities.
  
• Explain that the federal government has comprehensive legislation, the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act, which protects endangered species and prohibits trade in wild caught animals for commercial purposes. The municipality should not be duplicating or contradicting existing federal and provincial laws.
  
• Banning them will not protect them in the wild. Instead, it will hasten the extinction of many endangered species by ending domestic breeding. Instead of helping these animals, it will destroy them.
  
• Describe the very special and loving relationship between a bird and its owner, one that is even closer and more special than with other pets like dogs and cats. Stress how any law that would interfere with or end that special relationship would cause untold grief and anguish. There are many people who cannot keep other kinds of pets, for health or physical reasons, the elderly, shut-in, disabled, and children.
  
• Birds have been kept as pets and companions for centuries and are no different than dogs or cats in that sense.
  
• Ask why they would want to download the huge costs of enforcing such a bylaw from the federal or provincial governments. Where do they intend to get the manpower and the funding?
  
• Last but not least, explain to them that literally thousands of their constituents (i.e. voters) own birds. They may not be aware that there are hundreds of thousands of pet birds in a city the size of Toronto because they are extremely low profile pets that are kept within the confines of our own homes.
  
• Ask your local Councillor or Member of Parliament to keep you informed of any proposed laws that would affect your ability to keep any animals, as pets or otherwise, or that deals with endangered species or exotic animals. Put it in writing, send him or her a letter and ask them to put you on their mailing list.
  
• Offer your help in reviewing and advising on any proposed legislation dealing with animals and animal control. Offer to help them in their election campaign if they support you.

Get Organized

• Join a bird club. Form a "legislative committee" with other members to monitor new laws in your area and to prepare a defense when the inevitable challenge occurs.
  
• Talk to your friends, pet stores and anyone else that you know involved with birds or sympathetic to our cause. Inform them and ask them to support you.
  
• Be prepared to devote your time and some money to fight any bylaw that proposes to ban birds in your community. Write letters to your Councillors or Members of Parliament when the time comes.
  
• There is usually a public meeting or hearing to obtain "public consultation" on a proposed bylaw. Attend that hearing and make a presentation as to why you oppose any such law.
  
• Join the national organizations, the Avicultural Advancement Council of Canada and the Parrot Association of Canada, and get involved in their continuing efforts to resist and fight these laws.
  

Make a Donation

• Keeping track of new legislation, informing people of it and organizing an effective program to challenge it takes a great deal of money. Printing, copying and mailing costs become substantial very quickly and very few clubs or individuals can afford it on their limited budgets.
  
• Have your local club set up a "war chest" to which donations can be made and surplus budget invested for the day when it will be needed to fight a proposed bylaw in your own community.
  
• The Avicultural Advancement Council of Canada and the Parrot Association of Canada have set up a joint national program to organize clubs, individual breeders, aviculturists and pet bird owners to fight these bylaws. Your donations are sorely needed.

The AACC operates the Avian Preservation Foundation, a registered Canadian charity. Donations made out to the Foundation are tax deductible and you will receive an official receipt.

Several organizations and individual people are currently involved in the continuing challenge:

• The Avicultural Advancement Council of Canada, the national organization that represents pet bird owners, breeders and aviculturists across the country.
  
• The Parrot Association of Canada, a national group of parrot breeders and aviculturists dedicated to breeding parrots for conservation.
  
• The Budgerigar and Foreign Bird Society of Canada, a Toronto club that helped defeat the animal control bylaw.
  
• The Canadian Parrot Symposium which organizes an annual conference of international avian experts in Toronto.
  
• The Golden Triangle Parrot Club, a Kitchener area club and "Canada's oldest parrot society".
  
• Many other clubs and individuals including biologists, teachers, internationally known aviculturists, pet store owners, PIJAC, and just plain concerned pet owners.

The Avicultural Advancement Council of Canada may be contacted at:

    Toronto Office:
    Suite 500, 27 Queen Street East
    Toronto, Ontario M5C 2M6

    Fax: (416) 362-5013
    E-mail: choloboff@aol.com

    Victoria Office:
    P.O. Box 5126, Station B
    Victoria. B.C. V8R 6N4

    Fax: (250) 477-9935
    E-mail: aacc@home.com

    Website: www.islandnet.com/~aacc

The Parrot Association of Canada may be contacted at:

    60 Bristol Road East
    Suite 316
    Mississauga, Ontario
    L4Z 3K8

    E-mail: w.davey@sympatico.ca

Website: www.parrotscanada.org