The National Avian Welfare Alliance (NAWA) was originally formed in 2003 to respond to the USDA’s request for input on Animal Welfare Act regulations for birds. NAWA is a working group of numerous avicultural interests and organizations and includes a broad cross section of bird keeping professionals with experience in all types of birds including parrots, falconry, racing pigeons, pheasants, waterfowl, ratites, tanagers, turacos, toucans, hornbills, finches, doves and more.
Bringing birds under Animal Welfare Act (AWA) regulation is the result of a 1999 lawsuit by animal rights groups (ARDF and Doris Day Animal League) to force the USDA to regulate birds, rats and mice which were previously exempted from regulation.
The USDA settled the lawsuit in October of 2000 and agreed to develop the regulations. The lawsuit settlement allowed USDA to maintain control over the development of the regulations so they wouldn’t be forced to regulate them immediately. Since then, USDA has not developed the regulations. As a result, USDA has recently been sued by the American Anti-vivisection Society and Avian Welfare Coalition to force them to complete the regulations. The USDA must now provide status reports every 90 days on the progress of developing regulations.
In 2004, the participants of NAWA provided a comprehensive set of recommendations, including a draft set of regulations, to USDA. The avicultural community must not be silent or absent during this critical time if we do not want to be regulated by standards written by animal rights groups who seek to eliminate bird-keeping altogether. NAWA is continuing to work on behalf of the avicultural community to make sure our voices are heard.