As a birder, conservationist, and unintentional custodian of a family of parrots, I am super concerned about birds I see in cages in countries where they have wild populations. I don’t know whether I hope they are for sale or not—in the cases I’m responding to the conditions are extremely poor. But my understanding from parrot groups is that Mexico, at least, has strict laws against selling native birds.
Although I know my parrots well, I am reluctant to ID them and usually just mark them as captive. Can anything be done to mark these as potential victims of the wildlife trade? Is there any way to flag them? It’s deeply distressing to see. And more generally I’ve lost where to flag things that are inappropriate. Thanks for your help and consideration.
Flagging isn’t the best thing to do, because curators can’t fix this. The best thing is to reach out to the user and ask make sure there isn’t any illegal activity. You can reach out to authorities directly if you are concerned. You can also add observations to projects.
I’m so grateful for your reply. I am unsure how to do that without violating community standards, so I came here first. And how would it work to add the observation to projects? Are there projects out there for this purpose? Would I start a project to document the practice?
If you It looks like another user has provided a link to a similar discussion with a wild birds in cages project. Suggestions for engagement would still be welcome. Thank you.
In Mexico the governmental authority concerned with protecting species is La Procuraduria Federal de Proteccion al Ambiente (PROFEPA), which is a department of La Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (SEMARNAT).
It is a little complicated to make denouncements from outside of Mexico, but according to this SEMARNAT page, one way to do so is by email, which one can do from anywhere.
Thank you for being concerned for our protected species!