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three white throated sparrows that joined the party. I also Usually I buy my hulled seed supplies at the Wild Bird shop in Clayton Park, but the last lot of un-hulled Black Oil Sunflower in a manageable-sized bag actually came from Walmart in Halifax. Checking this out... ... on this 15 kg plastic bag is printed "made in Canada, Essex Topcrop Sales Ltd, Box 10, Essex, Ont., 1-800-265-4899, www.topcrop.ca". More to the point, the bag also bears logos (presumably seals of approval?) from "member" Wild Bird Feeding Institute, "supporting" National Bird-Feeding Society, and thirdly, Project Feeder Watch (Bird Studies Canada), www.bsc-eoc.org. The quotations "member" and "supporting" presumably mean that Walmart has supported these organizations financially, and that, accordingly, it has been permitted to use their logos. I mention all this because if anyone including me had concerns about this particular supply of BOS or others, presumably we could follow this up by contacting the three bird organizations above to see if they had checked the source of the BOS and were even aware of the Roundup story, or we could check with Essex Topcrop directly. The other correspondents concerned about this should check the inscriptions (if any) on their BOS bags to see if anyone has endorsed the source of their seeds. Walmart usually gets bad press and I'm not endorsing them here, but in this case at least it looks like three bird organizations have endorsed their BOS supplier. I'm sure that's what Walmart intends to convey to the public by printing their logos, and hope that's actually what it does mean. Steve (Halifax) **************************************** Quoting James Hirtle <jrhbirder@hotmail.com>: > Hi all: > I recieved this recently and was wondering if anyone has any > knowledge on this issue. If indeed there is any truth to the > following, I myself would find it somewhat disturbing. I would like > to send an answer to the individual, but I have no first hand > knowledge in regards to the topic. > > James R. Hirtle > Dublin Shore > > I am writing about sunflower seeds which I feed birds at my property > on Hidden Lake in the Labelle/Chelsea area. In October my wife and I > took a trip across Canada by train. On the outskirts of Winnipeg we > saw large fields packed with sunflower plants that were brown and > withered looking. I felt this to be somewhat odd considering that the > weather was still quite summer like and that I had seen sunflower > plants in Maniban gardens that still seemed robustly upright and > appealing to the sun. Whe I arrived at my older son's place in > Kelowna BC I happened to ask him whether he knew about the sunflower > crops around Winnipeg. He had spent some time in Winnipeg and his > girlfriend comes from a town out side of that city. My son said that > he was told that the sunflower plants are sprayed with Round Up to > facilitate the harvesting of the plants and the gathering of their > seeds. In January of this year I purchased an 18 kg bag of sunflower > seeds at Costco in Halifax. On the bag was printed the name of the > company, Keystone Grain Limited (they have a website) that distribute > the seed and I noticed it was in Winnipeg. I looked on the bag for > more infornmation and was surprised to see no mention that the seed > wasn't for human consumption. So I wrote them an e-mail to find out > if the seed was fit for humans. I have had no reply. I was wondering > whether you, because of your area of expertise, would have any > knowledge if in fact this is a method used to harvest the seed and > whether use of such seed - possibly corrupted or contaminated with a > herbicide - would be detrimental to birds. I read and hear of the > decimation and reduction in the counts of some types of birds. Could > this be a factor to consider or at least make notice of? >
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