Wild Parrot News From Beyond Brooklyn: Californians Rally to Declare Parrot As New State Bird

The proprietors of ParrotNotQuail.com have organized an online petition which they hope will result in a parrot replacing the quail as the California State Bird. According to the site, more than 200,000 people have signed it.

California is home to a sizable population of wild parrots (whose most storied members are found in San Francisco), and while it's gratifying to see the Golden State's indigenous parrots getting some high-visibility cyber-recognition, California has a bad record in terms of being friendly to our beloved Quaker Parrots, being one of only two U.S. States in which ownership of a pet Quaker is a crime. My hope is that this new movement will underscore the degree to which wild parrot flocks are largely a "value-added species" to North American skies.