Today is National Bird Day - a day when Born Free USA in coordination with the Avian Welfare Coalition (AWC) calls “on activists around the U.S. to take action on behalf of captive birds by drawing attention to the exploitation of other countries’ native birds by the U.S. pet industry”.

It’s an interesting initiative, but do we we really need another “such and such” Day? It’s getting so that every day is a special day to some sort of interest group, isn’t it?

Possibly, but consider these facts:

• As clearly laid out in the 2009 IUCN Red List, 192 bird species are in imminent danger of extinction and a total of 1,227 species are considered threatened with extinction (i.e. in the categories of Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable and Extinct in the Wild, a total that includes nearly one-third of the world’s 330 parrot species). This represents a staggering 12.4% of the total of 9,865 currently recognised extant bird species in the world.
• Birds are sentinel species whose plight serves as barometer of ecosystem health and alert system for detecting global environmental ills.
• Many of the world’s parrots and songbirds are threatened with extinction due to pressures from the illegal pet trade as well as disease and habitat loss.
• Public awareness and education about the physical and behavioral needs of birds can go far in improving the welfare of the millions of birds kept in captivity.
• In fact the survival and well-being of the world’s birds depends upon public education and support that we give for their conservation.

Far from there being too many ’special days’ I’m going to nail my colours firmly to the mast and say that there aren’t enough.

Conservation of the dwindling numbers of birds on the planet (overall numbers plummeted in the twentieth century, declines which followed the huge losses of the previous two centuries) is not something that we can pick up and pay attention to on a few ’special days’. We need to work every single day to turn the situation around.

Far too many people still see birds as little more than a resource or a commodity to be traded. We need to make a far greater effort to understand for ourselves just where the pet trade - legal and illegal - sources its ‘products’, how it treats them, how little it pays non-specialists to look after them, and how disposable it thinks of them.

Far too many people still fund the pet trade just by going into retailers and buying birds. Far too many people think that their one action has no repercussions; but for every bird that is sold a retailer will want to replace it with another they can sell as soon as possible. We need people to understand that, because sadly so many still don’t.

Will a post on a bird blog make any difference at all? Retailers will obviously hope not, but how would they feel if the same message appeared on a hundred blogs, a thousand blogs, on websites all over the world? I suspect that no matter how many posts we write we will never be able to change the minds’ of retailers - but we may must start making inroads into the perceptions of customers, the people who keep these retailers stocking their stores with frightened, often poorly-handled and poorly-nourished birds.

Too my mind that’s what the point of National Bird Day is all about: putting facts in front of potential purchasers, repeating the view that the trade in birds is not acceptable, not just part of our culture, not just something that we’ve always done and always will do. We can state our opposition clearly, put the alternative view online where it can be found and read, discussed and thought about.

Ingrained culture can be changed if leaders step forward and take the bold step of saying that the prevailing opinion is wrong. We who love birds should be amongst those leaders, be prepared to take the flak that will inevitably come our way, because change will never come if we don’t.

The trade in birds is wrong, it’s antiquated, it’s cruel, it’s wasteful. 10,000 Birds supports National Bird Day because it deserves supporting, because we think that the thinking behind it is accurate and should be the norm. Support it too and together let’s change the bird trade culture. Let’s kill it dead like it’s killed so many birds over the decades.

Let’s ‘Think Outside The Cage’ - today and every day!

• For more information please visit the National Bird Day website.