House finches, with their brown-streaked plumage and stout conical beaks, are such a common sight we often take them for granted.
What many people don’t know is that they’re originally from the deserts of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico. In the 1910s, '20s and '30s, they were captured illegally in Santa Barbara, sent to pet stores in Boston and New York, and sold as so-called “Hollywood Finches.”
In 1939, someone reported a New York pet store for selling them. Hoping to avoid a fine, the staff released their finches out the back door.
Only around 40 birds were freed, but some survived. They first established a population in Central Park, and in the 1950s they spread north to Quebec, south to the Florida Keys and out West. Today, they’re numerous in every U.S. state, including Alaska and Hawaii.
Highly social, house finches are vegetarians, even feeding their nestlings an exclusively plant-based diet. Depending on the pigments in their food, adult males develop plumage colors that vary widely, ranging from yellow to orange, red, or even deep purple.
In 1994, house finches met their nemesis when a bacterial eye disease spread to them from poultry. The symptoms – swollen eyes and respiratory problems – make it hard for them to forage and avoid predators. Millions have died. Now they’re in a battle for survival, their immune systems attempting to keep one step ahead of new strains of the bacteria.
But the history of the house finch shows that they’re real survivors!
This Earth Note was written by Diane Hope and produced by KNAU and the Sustainable Communities Program at Northern Arizona University.
