One year ago, I found a featherless, newly hatched baby bird on the floor of a friend's barn. Its eyes hadn't opened yet: it had never seen another bird. There was no way to get it back into its nest, and it was clearly doomed there on the ground, so I took it home.
I knew it was a European starling, one of those
speckled iridescent black birds with the long narrow beak that
are a common sight in the suburbs and anywhere else people
live. They are the ones that form huge noisy flocks that roost
in trees and move as a single morphing mass in the air. While
they can be beneficial to agriculture by controlling insects,
more often starlings are considered agricultural pests, since
they also eat grain, and it is legal in Pennsylvania to poison
and otherwise inhumanely cull them. I looked into state and
federal law regarding the keeping of starlings as pets:
because they are an invasive species (brought over from
England in the 1890s), they are not covered by wildlife law.
There appeared no impediment to my keeping Wiggles, as I'd
come to call the baby bird.
Wiggles grew and thrived in my care, but he turned
out to have a brain injury, probably suffered during his
original fall from the nest. He could not balance, which made
him unable to fly, or even perch like a normal bird. I made a
home for him in a puppy carrier and a bed for him in a rat
cube. He was a happy bird despite his handicaps.
Starlings are highly intelligent and sensitive
birds, comparable to parrots in their intelligence and ability
to bond with humans. Wiggles had only known me since he opened
his eyes, and we are as bonded as two creatures can be.
Because he is disabled, like my own son and other birds in my home, that bond was that
much more special. Wiggles means the world to me.
Several weeks ago, officers from the PA Game
Commission appeared at my door with a search warrant. They had
found out I kept starlings and determined that to be illegal.
I still do not understand their reasoning, which they have
failed to clarify. Wiggles is being held at an unknown
wildlife rehabber's somewhere in PA. I know he cannot be doing
well. We had a bedtime routine that is not being followed: a
nighttime snack, a song, the AC on and lights out, and I tuck
him in to his little bed: Wiggles would peep until everything
was just right. My life has been empty without him.
The word from the Game Commission was that he is
scheduled to be released into the wild. This cannot happen:
even if Wiggles were not disabled, he would be unable to
survive in the wild because he is a human-imprinted bird: he
is completely socialized. He is as domestic as any
hand-raised, wing-clipped pet parrot, and as incapable of
surviving in the wild. Science and ethics both say he needs to
be returned to his family who loves him.
There have been cases in the past of confiscated
birds being returned to their owners: a case of a quaker
parrot got some publicity recently. Wiggles needs to come
home.
There is a petition to save Wiggles that can be
found here:
https://www.change.org/petitions/pennsylvania-game-commission-free-wiggles-and-make-european-starlings-legal-to-own-in-pa
If you want to help, write to the game commission
here: pgccomments@pa.gov
You can also let Senator Alloway and
Representative Todd Rock know how you feel, as well as
Governor Corbett. alloway@pasen.gov and trock@pahousegop.com
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