Aviculture

Aviculture is the practice of keeping and often breeding birds and the culture that forms around it. Aviculture is generally focused not just on the raising and breeding of birds, but also on preserving avian habitat, and public awareness campaigns.

Types of aviculture

There are various reasons that people get involved in aviculture. Some people breed birds to preserve a species, some breed parrots as companion birds, and some breed birds to make a profit.

The truest meaning of aviculture is that described by Dr. Jean Delacour, the most influential individual aviculture has ever seen-

"Aviculture - The worldwide hobby of keeping and breeding numerous species of wild birds in captivity to maintain their numerical status in nature with a view of forestalling their extinction by supplying aviary raised stock"

Avicultural societies

There are avicultural societies throughout the world, but generally in Europe, Australia and the United States, where people tend to be more prosperous and have more leisure time to invest. The first avicultural society in Australia was The Avicultural Society of South Australia, founded in 1928; and now promoted with the name Bird Keeping in Australia.

Avicultural publications

Like many hobbies, there are many publications catering to aviculture, books on species as pets, books on breeding, and introductory books for parrots and softbills. There are also numerous periodicals, both generalized and specific to types of birds, although they are rarely more specific than "parrot." These periodicals contain articles on breeding, care, companionship, choosing a bird, health effects, and usually several on an individual species or genus. Supply companies publish catalogs of products for bird keepers. Their products range from hand-rearing supplies to cages as alarge as a walk-in aviary.The oldest Avicultural Society in the United States is the Avicultural Society of America, founded in 1927 www.asabirds.org. The ASA produces a critically acclaimed bi-monthly magazine entitled ASA Avicultural Bulletin. The ASA is a 501(3)(c) non-profit organization that focuses on breeding, conservation, restoration and education. Their yearly education conference features notable speakers from around the world.

Sub-branches

Canariculture

From the common name canary associated with the "Serinus canaria", a song bird native to the Canary Islands, Madera, and the Azores. This bird has been kept as a cagebird in Europe from the 1470s to the present and now enjoys an international following. The terms "canariculture" and "canaricultura" have been used in French and Spanish/Italian respectively to describe the keeping and breeding of canaries for some time, and English speaking canary breeders are beginning to use the term more commonly.

Psittaculture

The word comes from the psittacinae (Latin psittacinus, for parrot, from Greek psittakos) Psittaculture is a word that has been used in the aviculture community since the early 1970s, to denote people whom specialize in keeping, breeding and conserving psittacines species, also on preserving psittacines habitat, and public awareness campaigns to save wild parrots.It is one branch of the science of aviculture.

"Psittaculturist" {Parrot Breeder} is a person whom specializes in keeping and breeding and conserving psittacines species, also on preserving psittacines habitat, and public awareness campaigns of the threats to the ongoing existence of parrots worldwide.

As with Aviculture in the sub-branch of psittaculture you will find four levels of psittaculture:

1. The specialist pet owner whom keep only parrots as pets; some will have dozens of pet parrots.

2. The specialist backyard hobbiest whom keeps a modest collection of only parrots and breeds them on a very small scale.

3. The specialist hobby farm breeder whose collection has grown so large that they need to shift out to rural farms but still as considered a hobbyist.

4. The specialist professional parrot farmer whom derives his/her main income from the breeding & selling only parrots.

References