Subject: introducing species?
Date: Sep 14 08:19:21 1994
From: Anna Coles - acoles at u.washington.edu


Hello. Anna Coles here (_here_ being Seattle M-F and Kitsap Co. on
weekends).
My husband, Steven, and I were discussing bluebirds with the owner of
Wild Bird Nature Company at the Olympic Village (?) shopping center in
Gig Harbor (just off highway 16) (yes, it's a plug--very nice,
enthusiastic people; also not a chain.)

Someone had called in a sighting of a bluebird to the store--the sighting
was in a meadowy area near Gig Harbor--we were all skeptical, but it got
us to thinking: We assume that if bluebirds were in the area, they would
be Western, not Mountain. The area seems to be the right kind of
habitat, grassy, open pasture-like areas, right? What if we wanted to
transfer some bluebirds to the area? Do the laws that protect birds
extend to not allowing them to be introduced to new, suitable habitat?
If it is legal, how would we go about introducing the birds to a new habitat?
Thank you in advance to any thoughts on this subject. --Anna Coles
acoles at u.washington.edu