-> trace their ancestry back 400 years to the Spanish.  The only native
-> psittacines in this area were the Carolina parakeets that went
-> extinct around 1900.
OKay, I'll grant you that, even though it seems to me that wild Cuban
birds could have immigrated almost as easily as ours do across the Rio
Grande. But....
-> The only parrots indigenous to the contiguous
-> US were the Carolina parakeet and the Thickbill parrot west of the
-> Mississippi.
 ..... We're contiguous, (Sort of) to Mexico and there's sure plenty of
WILD parrots down THERE!  I think it's strange that Florida HAD no
parrots and that the Lower Rio Grande Valley MUST have had at least some
misfits and malcontents!  (The two parts of th country being so
similar in most other respects.)
Rich, I just don't think that all the parrots we see here along the
river are feral.  Some distinctly are.  Anything with a big yellow
splash on it's head almost certainly is, but there's CLOUDS of parrots
50-100 miles south of us that look JUST like the ones we have locally.
It's also semi-important that we establish these as "Native" birds so
as to gain the protection of "Endangered Species" status.  If for no
OTHER reason to stop the nest robbing that goes on via Utility Employees
with bucket trucks!  And to a somewhat lesser extent problems concerning
little boys with BB guns and transient dove hunting idiots with
shotguns!
There is presently NO law, other than local city ordinance (And you
just wouldn't BELIEVE the hell we had getting THOSE passed) which allows
ANY prosecution for molesting our hook-billed friends.
 ^..^
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