I must admit to some impatience with the xenophobia erupting over these
feral parakeets. Everyone, it seems, has to hate something, and, in our
culture's current preoccupation with political correctness, some people
apparently refocus their instinctive racism on introduced birds.
Certainly ignorance breeds contempt. Of course there is no reason to
*assume* these parakeets are "competing" with native species, but, for
some people, this apparently successful "introduction" is a "breaching of
the dike", so to speak. It challenges the status quo, and (especially)
closet conservatives are bothered. There goes the neighborhood! It has
been reported that Roger Tory Peterson, when asked a few years ago about
his view of the establishment of several species of exotic Psittacines in
the East, replied, "Well, that just means that we have more birds to
watch, doesn't it?" I agree. Exotics are often a problem at some level
(Purple Loosestrife and Spartina are two examples from the plant world
that have raised temperatures locally in recent years) but the fact of
the matter is that a fight against them is virtually bound to fail (as it
will in the case of those two weeds), but a whole lot of people make a
whole lot of money trying (and doing real high powered *research* in the
case of the scientific *community*). The invaders usually level out in a
few years and are more or less accepted. And I don't hear these folks
who want to wipe out the parakeets clamoring for an end to Ring-necked
Pheasant populations in North America, Chukars in the West, or (and this
one is probably doable) wiping out the few Skylarks on San Juan Island!
Channel your vitriol elsewhere, please.
Steve Herman-

Steven G. Herman
The Evergreen State College
Olympia WA 98505
(360) 866-6000, ext.6063
943-5751 (home)
hermans at elwha.evergreen.edu