hello tweets,

i haven't seen the painted bunting, but i can say (as an "exotic"
bird afficionado) that painted buntings are not kept in captivity
legally in this country, to the best of my knowledge. i certainly
have never seen one in any private aviary in this area.

regards,

Deborah Wisti-Peterson, PhD Candidate nyneve at u.washington.edu
Department of Zoology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash, USA
Visit me on the web: http://students.washington.edu/~nyneve/
Love the creator? Then protect the creation.

On Sun, 3 Mar 2002, Ruth Taylor wrote:

> Gene & Tweets:
> The question about whether the painted bunting would be an accepted record
> came up this morning while several of us were waiting for it to pop out of
> the ivy & back into view. I can understand why these birds might be assumed
> to be escapees from captivity in Southern California, or even in the rest of
> California, but, up here?
> What kind of research are you referring to? I would *guess* there would be
> checking with "exotic bird" aficionados to see if many, or any, are
> sold/kept up here. I would also *guess* that the WRBRC would look at other
> accepted records and analyze them. Beyond that?
> One person mentioned that often birds are assumed to be escapees, or in some
> way human-assisted, if there is no proof that they are not. What kind of
> proof would they be able to provide? Why would there be an assumption of a
> bird being an escapee if there is no evidence to the contrary? Our legal
> system assumes innocent until proven guilty. Does the WRBRC assume a
> different standard of proof? I hope I'm not being naive, but I am curious
> about this process.

[some stuff removed for brevity]