A very sickening trend (1 Viewer)

The following associated press article appeared in today's newspaper. A group of members on a humnet listserv I belong too have been baraging ebay and the sellers for the last two weeks. One writer, who tried to explain to the seller that what she was doing was illegal and was accused by the seller as harrassing her. :storm: Local




email this print this Posted on Sun, Jul. 11, 2004
Birds' nests, eggs illegally sold on eBay


[size=-1]The Associated Press[/size]


CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The Internet marketplace that is eBay offers some unexpected wares - even songbird nests from Charlotte's back yards.

Bird lovers are aghast at a series of illegal online sales of eggs and nests. Beyond risking prison and a $250,000 fine, sellers taking nests at the height of the breeding season could hurt the species already in decline.

An eBay listing of a hummingbird nest caught the eye of one naturalist early this month. Bill Hilton Jr. of York wrote the seller, who hadn't realized her error and removed the listing.

Most of the three dozen other sellers he and fellow birders have written since mid-June, Hilton said, didn't respond or tried to fudge the details.

"These birds live in my yard all year round and [are] not migratory birds," a Charlotte eBay seller who goes by "toad08" wrote in a June 20 listing of bluebird, wren, titmouse and chickadee nests.

That's wrong. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 protects more than 800 species, including bald eagles and Carolina chickadees. The federal law allows offenders to be punished by up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The migratory bird law was a response to uncontrolled shooting of birds to sell on the meat market and to supply feathers for fashionable hats in the early 1900s. The first national wildlife refuges also sprang out of public outrage over those practices.

The law makes it a misdemeanor to even possess bird parts, feathers, eggs and nests. The biggest penalties, felonies, are for selling them.

But Internet trading is almost impossible for understaffed wildlife agencies to track. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has 261 enforcement officers. Three million new items are listed each day on eBay.

Many people don't know such transactions are illegal, wildlife experts say, or their potential harm. "Empty" nests may actually hold two or three clutches of eggs a year.

"Birds need all the help they can get," Hilton said. "Stealing the eggs and nests out from under them isn't going to help matters at all."

Sandra Cleva, a spokesman for Fish and Wildlife law enforcement, said hundreds of items illegal under wildlife law, including sea turtle shells and stuffed migratory birds, are traded online each day.

"It's hard to even start cataloging what may be sold on the Internet at any given time," she said. "We simply do not have the resources to pursue every sale."

Wildlife agents do periodically check online trading sites, Cleva said. She said eBay pulls illegal items when notified.

"Our general policy is that if it's illegal offline, it is illegal on eBay," company spokesman Chris Donlay said.

The numbers, again, stack the odds against vigorous security. EBay lists 25 million items, has 105 million users worldwide and $1,000 in trades change hands every second.

The two nests the Observer reported to eBay on Thursday were off the site by Friday.

But buyers could take their choice of four new listings. The four Charlotte nests "toad08" offered on eBay sold for $41, chickadee egg included.


email this print this

Hi KC,

I don't think that a lot of people are aware that you can't remove nests etc etc. However if the USFWS is at all serious in pursuing these people surely it can't be that difficult to obtain the information from ebay from the sellars account that has been created. If I found this stuff on ebay i'd be tempted to show interest in it just to get their name and address of the sellar involved and pass it on to the USFWS.

Luke

No, they are not aware Luke. But more amazing was the reaction of the sellers once they found out. Some were very good about it and honestly upset over it. But others, like the one I spoke of would not back down even after it had been nicely explained to them that it was wrong.

Tell me about it KC - I've recently been confronted fairly angrily by at least a couple of people I have kindly reminded that they shouldn't be walking their unleashed dogs on nature reserves holding piping plover nests and bobolink nests even when it is expressly forbidden on signs around the prevserves and the details of the rarity of these endangered birds. Some people just seem to think that they can do whatever they like - a shame really - it's at this point that I think some type of action needs to be taken by people that they will listen to or can threaten them with some form of punishment.

Luke

What worries me more is the sicko's who BUY these things!

Johnny1 said:

What worries me more is the sicko's who BUY these things!

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I agree.

dang, this is worse than the people who shoot endangered species jsut to make conservationists look bad.

I too agree with the quote by Johnny1, and must say, people these days are so greedy they'll do anything to make a few extra bucks. Another eBay scam: selling stuff for extremely cheap, but the shipping is extremely high. This is because eBay only takes a certain amount of the profits (excluding S&H) when a product is sold. So by jacking up the S&H, the seller can receive 100% of the S&H, and maybe 90% of the winning bid.

I hate people who toss their cigarette butts to the ground or out their car windows. Suppose i didn't know I had a gas leak in my car, and the guy in front of me tosses out a lit cigarette. Anyone want to guess what could happen?

People, especially people in the U.S.A., should force themselves to listen now and then to some of the popular talk radio programs that now fill and overfill the AM airwaves in this country. I mean the ones hosted by personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, etc. These people regularly put forth the viewpoint that government protection of wildlife, and indeed a large portion of government environmental protections generally, are the misguided, intrusive, and "socialistic" results of the undue influence of "tree-huggers" and "econazis." This constant drumbeat of abusive discussion aimed at all things environmental has resulted, I fear, in a growing delegitimation of legal authority aimed at protecting wildlife. And the sad thing is that such contempt for environmental protection is apparently sanctioned at the highest levels of our government, where our leaders clearly have other priorities.

The truth is that given the absurdly tiny budgets available to enforce migratory bird protection, we've come to depend upon voluntary compliance by the population at large. However, if more and more people come to view disrespecting wildlife protections as a veritable act of political conscience, then we are going to hear more and more stories such as the one that initiated this thread.

Doug Greenberg said:

The truth is that given the absurdly tiny budgets available to enforce migratory bird protection, we've come to depend upon voluntary compliance by the population at large. However, if more and more people come to view disrespecting wildlife protections as a veritable act of political conscience, then we are going to hear more and more stories such as the one that initiated this thread.

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Very well said Doug :clap:

Hi,

This is my first time posting here, and I've yet to explore the variety of topics at this forum. I found my way here by way of a search on the topic of bird nests. I too am appalled that this is going on at ebay. I thought the days of selling nests/eggs for decoration was passe and I'm shocked to learn that it's not. I've been an ebay member for a while, but never thought to ever look to see if there were any bird nests or wild bird eggs for sale! ... then, last week, my husband forwarded a message to me he received about someone logging and recording some recent nest sales there.

I decided to look for myself and I found a nest and 35 wild bird eggs (don't know what kind of eggs they are) offered from two different auctions. I decided to not only report them to ebay, as others have suggested, but to also make a post on one of the ebay discussion boards to see if other ebay members may be upset about this, and also to have this thread on one of their own boards.

It seems that letters from concerned citizens probably need to be sent to various departments and officials, and perhaps a group of people will form who actively do this enough until practice ends.

If you are an ebay member and wish to view or respond to the thread about the "Selling of bird nests and eggs," I posted this topic at one of the ebay communities called "Town Square" on 7/17 ... one way to possibly get ebay's attention on this matter may be to keep these types of threads alive. Keeping quiet about it isn't going to stop it, so I thought I'd join in with the others who are trying to shout it out over the Internet and do a little myself in hopes to ward off a negative trend.

~~~~
To find the ebay "Town Square" ... go to "Communities" ... "Discussions" ... then on the lower-left hand side, there is one called "Town Square."

Birdcharm, hello! On behalf of the entire staff here at BirdForum.net, a warm welcome to you.

I belong to a humnet listserv that has been barraging Ebay and the US Fish & wildlife agency about this. Truly hoping that ebay will sit up and take notice. I haven't done a check since last friday, but will log on later to check out.

Now, as far as our forums go birdcharm, it is really a diverse forum with so much to offer just about everybody. I'm glad you found us and hope to see you here often.

Hi,

Thanks for the warm welcome ... I will be sure to start to do some exploring here within the forums!

Well, they (ebay) pulled my thread over there. It appears that I broke one of their policies (perhaps the mentioning of actual auction numbers ... the illegal ones) ... I'll have to read the policy closer and then perhaps start a new thread in more general terms.

Funny how quickly they will pull a posting from their Town Square, but allow illegal auctions to go on. I've now been told that there are auctions on there involving endangered animals or parts of endangered animals.

I believe that a central network of concerned people is going to get started and when I am informed of this, I'll post it here. There *really* needs to be public outcry about this, and I have a firm belief that the trade of these items is a wrong-doing, and not just because it's illegal, so I guess I'm in the midst of a cause. There are many important causes for us to involve ourselves in, but this one seems to have me in its grips ... perhaps because it seems to be a growing trend and since ebay is so popular, I feel it's really important for the public to force them to take a stand on these issues.

I may start another thread over there, as it seemed to get their attention ... yet, another nest auction was probably allowed to continue and close this morning ... the egg auction may still be on there too ... here were the auction numbers I had written about ... 8118967876 (I think this one is the one with the eggs... any thoughts as to what type of eggs these are?) and 3688476542.

(Also, the eggs auction is from Idaho, so I went to the Idaho F & G website (http://fishgame.idaho.gov) and reported this auction.)

As soon as I hear something about the formation of concerned parties, I'll come back here to post it ...

Morning birdcharm! Thanks for the update. Another perusal of the ebay pages turned up a whole slew of items

Another hummer nest offered on eBay yesterday -- this one from Utah with an egg and the branch on which the nest is attached... This brings to 57 the number of nest auctions that have been monitored on eBay since June 17, and 71 total nests... For kicks we also looked at other illegal wildlife auctions on eBay -- have found Siberian Tiger skin, ocelot skin (endangered species), and a whole slew of bear skin rugs (illegal to sell in California, and hence on eBay). Interestingly, several of the bear skin sellers note in their item description something like "eBay may pull this auction, so if you want to bid, be sure to send me your email." Amazing

Only a venue?

KCFoggin said:

\Amazing

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Dear KCFoggin

Ebay claims to be only a venue and therefore claims to bear no repsonsibility for the ads placed. My local newspaper does a better job of policing its advertisements than does ebay.
The best example of ebay responding to pressure was when the French goverment forced ebay to remove nazi memorabilia from its French site and the resulting disappearance of the twisted cross from illustrations on ebay. This was consistent with Italian and German law as well. Ebay's response was so good, that I had problems viewing U.S. Army WW2 binoculars because my web browser was set to work in Italian as well as English.
I do not expect the current powers in Washington to be as insistent in making ebay uphold our own laws.

Happy bird watching,
Arthur Pinewood

What I want to know is why would anyone want to buy nests with eggs? What are they doing with them? Are they collectors or are they putting them in their homes for decoration? I don't get it!
I agree that it is wrong, bad, needs to be stopped and all the rest...........but why is there a market for this?

Hi Josette.

If I've learned anything, it's that there is a market for just about anything out there.

Sick! This is just too depressing. I have never heard of this before. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Maybe if more people were aware it would stop.

Hi Josette,

Yes, it is depressing ... I've heard of it before though, but I thought it went out with the turn of the last century for some naive reason. I guess I have been assuming that people have developed a deeper understanding for some reason and that birds and their nests aren't here for our decorative purposes. Women used to wear Snowy Egret plumes in their hats up to the point where that species was almost extinct. And, they also wore actual stuffed birds too. If you ever get a chance, look up some information about Florence Merriam Bailey ... or better yet, her biography "No Woman Tenderfoot" ... she was one person who made a big difference in the public's perception of using birds as trinkets.

Even if you do a search with her name on the Internet, you'll find some reading material that may interest you, but her fight for the birds was not an overnight success, as you can imagine and that's why reading the book is good.

As for us trying to make it so ebay has responsbility for these things, we're going to have to fight for it too.

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife rep. told us that public outcry is needed to get enough attention about this.

Hi KC ... and thanks for *your* update ... do you have an auction number for this one?

I found four more nests up there as of 7/24 ... here are the numbers (all from the same seller).

8120522832, 8120522256, 8120523039, 8120523413

This link may get you to the first one more easily and then you can just view seller's other items from the site.

http://cgi3.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISA...2832&category=57738&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:US:1

Hi Arthur P.,

I don't know how long they are going to be able to get away with "only being a venue" ... they have to have some responsibility for what goes on in their establishment.

Or, at least some moral duty would be nice ...