sad news in Georgia,
A fellow BYC er just PM ed me with some very disturbing news.
From copies of her e-mails with GA Officials she sent, and GA OCGA Law codes she sent me, it is now illegal to own any species of waterfowl protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in the state of Georgia, as well as many species of game birds.
This includes all species of migratory waterfowl!!!!!! All of them!!!
You talk about hot.... I was boiling, as you know I am getting ready to get back all the ones I had. Apparently, this laws has been in effect since before I was born. The local Wardens who always inspected me, and even the Federal ones, apparently had no idea of it either. They came every 4 -6 months and never said a word about it. But from e-mail correspondences she sent me from Georgia Officials at the DNR and Georgia OCGA codes she sent me, it's there in 6-8 laws.
Basically says, no one residing in the state of Georgia, may posses for any reason, outside of legal hunting harvest, and bird, live or dead protected under the US Migratory Bird Act, then goes on to list them all by species, which has all our common migratory species, from Wood ducks to Eiders and harlequins...
Her guy, suggested contacting our Congressmen in Atlanta about the laws and asking them to revise them to allow for keeping of properly marked and federally licensed keeping of CAPTIVE bred waterfowl. Makes sense, every other state does allow it, why not us....The laws read like it's a major protection deal, that without a total band, all species will be collected from the wild and depleted, not true... Like she told them
"So in Georgia, you can kill them, you just cant propagate and preserve them" Doesn't make much sense does it.... Anyway, you can bet this really struck home to me, and I fully encourage all members to contact their state congressman when they reconvene in January to try our best to get this ridiculous law amended to allow captive breeding programs.
As the law reads, only by special permit now can you own them, teachers for education, and exhibitors, (zoos) that's it.
All non native species are fine, just no North American species.
Contact me for more info on this, and please help us change this law! Funny, we have a local weekly paper put out for farmers in Georgia, by The Georgia Dept. of Agriculture in Atlanta, THEY ALLOW ADVERTISEMENTS FOR THEM! So, it's obvious, no one knows about this law, not even most of the DNR Officials, it's so out dated.
Even the Georgia Game Bird Breeders Association told her there was no such law, yet she showed it to me in plain English, and has several friends who have been heavily fined over it with all their birds confiscated....ridiculous!!