Yacolt Wild Parrot Crisis Deteriorates Into Chaos and Confusion

I am saddened to report that the wild parrot controversy in Yacolt Washington appears to have descended into near anarchy. According to my source, an emergency meeting called last weekend to discuss the fate of the Wild Quaker Parakeets of Yacolt devolved into a blizzard of "name-calling" and ad hominem attacks.

The gathered pro-parrot groups now appear split into three warring contingents: those who want to capture the parrots and give them sanctuary in a parrot-friendly city, those who want them to remain free, and those who want to capture and sell them back to Yacolt city residents for $75 each. As my correspondent (who favors keeping the parrots wild) notes, "it's now a 3-ring circus and open game on the poor Quaker Parrots." At the same time, unnamed officials of the City of Yacolt have issued an ironclad edict giving the parrots four months to "get out of town" or face a team of trained snipers (an event which was only narrowly averted last week).

While I had high hopes that there might be a happy ending to this crisis, it now appears to me that the situation in Yacolt is clearly beyond rational solution. While I count myself in the camp favoring keeping the parrots wild, it seems that the parrots have so many human enemies in the City of Yacolt that allowing them to remain there would put them in severe peril.

Wild parrots will never survive in places where powerful authorities collectively decide to be rid of them: we learned that in the 19th Century in the sad case of the Carolina Parakeet, which was hunted to extinction, and we appear to be learning it again in the City of Yacolt, Washington, which is clearly bent on making its skies parrot-free. At the very least let us rescue the remaining birds before April 1, 2008 and avoid another deadly fusillade.