Black Market Bird – 2011 | Ink Painting

Description

‘Black-market Bird’ depicts the illegal parrot trade over the Mexico/U.S. border. This is the second-largest illegal border business next to drug smuggling. Birds are smuggled in cardboard tubes, heavily packed into suitcases, taped inside hubcaps, drugged or given tequila to sedate them. This painting features over 250 hand-painted parrots, flying in a great cloud into tubes for smuggling over a background of tiny words outlining the issue.

Text in painting reads:

Millions of wild, free-living birds annually trapped and traded internationally

Birds are the third most popular pet in the world

Annual retail turnover in parrots in the U.S. estimated at three hundred million

Approximately two million parrots are legally or illegally traded each year

Animal protection agencies are calling for a stop to the breeding, sale and trade of all bird species

Caged birds are prone to emotional distress and physical aggression

Captive birds are known to self-mutilate, plucking out feathers and biting off their toes

A cage for a bird is a prison

Parrot, Psittaciformes order, is the worlds most endangered family of birds

Highly lucrative black-market parrot trade, smuggling parrots over Mexico/U.S. border is the second-largest illegal border business next to drug smuggling

Birds are smuggled in cardboard tubes, heavily packed into suitcases, taped inside hubcaps, drugged or given tequila to sedate, their beaks often taped closed

Over half of birds trapped die before reaching their destination through suffocation, starvation or inhumane treatment

Numbers of legally exported parrots being reduced to aid in their protection, subsequently creating more demand and increase in profit for illegal trade to meet public demands

H5N1 avian influenza virus has been detected in legally imported and smuggled birds. With a current mutation of the virus spreading in Asia the illegal smuggling of wild birds could again accelerate the spread of the virus

Illegal bird trade a conservation issue and a serious economic and public health concern with potential spread of virus

Written by Emma J V Hogg