Talk:List of birds of the Maldives
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the house sparrow is not native to the Maldives it was introduced as a pet somewhere around 1960-1970 or earlier, it has not successfully been bred in the Maldives on a large scale in the wild or in captivity, i should know i have a friend who tried, we have since decided the Maldives is not a suitable habitat for House Sparrows and given up, although we love Sparrows the cost was becoming too great so we moved on to other birds, there were several people who tried to introduce sparrows in to the Maldives, but when the government included the House Sparrow onto its list of protected birds in the Maldives, making it illegal to own sparrows, most of these populations have been released and subsequently died off, there are no wild sparrows in the Maldives as they do not breed in sustainable numbers in the Maldives, the two colonies that still survive1 are intensively cared for by their owners, who no longer have any legal claim to them. One colony is in the capital island Male1, the other is in the island of Thulhaidhoo1.
How the Sparrow came to be identified as native and protected in the Maldives is a mystery to me, and all inquiries into the matter were met with anger from officials2 rather than a scientific explanation. I have yet to see any documented evidence of their existence outside of captivity in the Maldives.
Any clarifications would be welcome.
1in 2003, I have not personally seen either of the colonies since then, maybe they died off too, haven't had the heart to ask the owners.
2 most were amused that I would bother to question a government decision, and some told me that by protecting them it would help the wild populations to prosper, I reminded them that there are no wild Sparrows in the Maldives, at which point they asked me if i had conducted a thorough survey, I asked them if they had, obviously the discussion went south from there.
202.21.176.44 (talk) 19:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC) bird lover 202.21.176.44 (talk) 19:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
