>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
What about all the starlings? They are way worse than loosestrife.

Carolyn Eagan
eaganc at brigadoon.com
Seattle