Becca Knox wrote:

>Illegal? To possess a feather? Help me understand this please. I have
>always suspected that the feathers I smuggled into the country from my
>travels in Australia were contraband, but what gives on "found"
>feathers? Maybe you'd better outline the technical illegalities for me
>so I can be sure to have full information the next time I pluck a feather
>from the underbrush or (Egad!) from an interesting road kill. Am I
>endangering myself or treading too close to the line of legality?

Yep, the federal law clearly states "migratory birds or parts thereof" (I'm
probably paraphrasing slightly, too lazy to get my permit folder out of the
drawer and look in it). That's why feather jewelry usually consists of
pheasant feathers, and fishing flies are typically made from only game bird
or domestic bird feathers (because you can legally "take" game birds, you
can possess their parts, but it's best if you keep a record of your hunting
license).

It really is against the law of our land to have a chickadee feather in
your possession. The idea of course is that an enforcement agent has no
way of knowing whether you shot the chickadee or picked the feather from a
window kill or, for that matter, found a molted feather on the ground.
Fortunately, enforcement agents aren't wasting their time looking for
chickadee feathers in peoples' homes. Nor has anyone made a test case of a
little kid's feather collection at the local science fair. But it IS
against the law.

>And what about "bird mites", those threats to public health so fervently
>guarded against by one of Barbara Kingsolver's characters (in 'Animal
>Dreams", I think) - warning his children not to play with feathers or
>other bird parts for fear of infection. Any risk to the average feather
>gatherer from the parasites that must exist on birds, as surely as they
>do on lobster lips? Oh the wonderful array of dangers we encounter in
>the outside world!

As far as I know, there's no danger of bird ectoparasites being transmitted
to humans. Feather lice, or biting lice (order Mallophaga), are bird
parasites, while sucking lice (order Anoplura) such as human body lice and
crab lice are typically found on mammals.

Dennis Paulson, Director phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416