daleh@tekcae.UUCP (Dale Henrichs) (08/18/85)
I discovered the following in the November 1984 issue of AUDUBON, in an article entitled "Dick Pough: Conservation's Ultimate Entrepreneur", and describes the introduction of the house finch on the East Coast: One of Pough's later sallies came to a rather untidy conclusion. Moira spotted an ad annoucing that Macy's was selling "California linnets" for eighty-nine cents apiece. Dick visited the store and saw that the birds for sale were house finches, a western American species protected by federal law. Pet stores all around town, in fact, were selling these birds. He alerted federal agents, who began to issue summonses. Apparently some of the dealers, in their haste to rid themselves of contraband, turned the birds loose on Long Island. In April 1941, birdwatchers at Jones Beach on Long Island spotted a bird that looked at first like a purple finch but on closer inspection turned out to be a house finch. The establishment of the species in the eastern United States had begun. Before you get the wrong idea about this guy, Dick Pough "wrote the Audubon bird guides" and founded the Nature Conservancy. Dale Henrichs tektronix!tekcae!daleh