The alleged finch fight club raided in Shelton had neighbors scratching their heads Sunday.
Neighbors aren’t the only ones confused by the news. While cockfighting has made headlines for years,this type of bird fighting seems to be a new one for law enforcement and bird experts.
Apparently all the men charged Sunday hail from Brazil, originally. Yet cursory Internet searches don’t return loads of pages with information on Brazilian bird fighting.
The CT Post reports that local bird experts are stumped.
Notoriously unreliable Wikipedia mentions the birds are sometimes used for fighting:
“Males are territorial and polygamous, mating with two females during the nesting season, a trait that has led the species to be used for blood sporting, when two males are put in the same cage in order to fight.”
Wikipedia attributes the statement to a photography book, “Aves e Pássaros comuns do Rio de Janeiro.”
A bird site called ArthurGrosset.com also mentions the birds are used in blood sport:
“They are also used in fights where two males are placed in a large cage and bets are taken on which one wins the fight. Sounds very unpleasant.”
The site attributes the factoid to the 1993 book “Birds in Brazil” by Helmut Sick.
We peppered the folks at BirdChannel.com Monday morning with questions.
Assistant Editor Jessica Pineda passed along the inquiry to Karl Lieberman, the publication’s finch and canary columnist.
About the saffron finches, Lieberman said
“I have dealt with hundreds of [saffron finches]. You can have (say) 50 birds in a large cage with plenty of everything [perches, toys, food, water, toys] and they seem happy as clams.”
“Next day, you may awake to find a bloody mess of injured birds and torn out feathers. They are often nasty to other species, too – especially if they are yellow.”
“While I have known them to turn on each other (even in groups), I have never heard of them being used for fighting.”
“For some reason, they really do not tame down in captivity and their behavior (especially in a cage) would be frantic around people.”
Have you ever heard of people pitting canaries against each other? Does it happen in other parts of the world?
“There is a long and (mostly very venerable) history of bird keeping in most of Asia, and part of it does sometimes involve staged fights between territorial males of some species. “
“Others used for this include leafbirds (Chloropseidae) and Dhyal Thrushes (Copsychus saularis). Bird fighting (culturally)
is just an accepted part of life. The idea is the same [as cockfighting]. Certain species of bird are asocial outside of breeding time and will fight viciously if forced to share a space.”
“It’s important to note that, in most cases, the birds are separated before inflicting serious damage on each other as they are often truly loved family pets and songbirds. Often they are also very valuable if as both singers and fighters.”
Will a canary that has killed be more aggressive? Is there a chance these hundreds of birds can ever be someone’s pet?
“A canary that has been forced to fight is just doing what comes naturally and once the invading bird has been removed (one way or another) there is no further aggression.”
“They do not develop a blood lust but will always fight an invading male.”
“Such a bird would not be unsafe or unwise to keep as a pet or use as a breeder so long as we remember canaries are a different family of finches [as finches are social flock animals] that do not enjoy each others’ company outside the breeding
period.”
