How many people in the US have parrots as pets and how many pet
parrots are there?  What has the trend been over the past five years and/or
the projected numbers for the next?

Hi there,

A good source for this information is the 2003/2004 APPMA National Pet
Owners Survey. Unfortunately it costs $595.
http://www.appma.org/membership/survey.asp

However they do have some data available from their previous survey on
their website...

"APPMA’s survey reports that 6.9 million households own a total of 19
million birds, placing breeds such as cockatiels, parakeets and
finches fourth behind dogs, cats and freshwater fish as the most
popular type of pet owned in the United States."
http://www.appma.org/press/news_releases/2002/nr_10-02.asp

The most popular breeds are:

1. Cockatiel (38%)
2. Parakeet (31%) 
3. Finch (9%)  
4. Parrot (8%) 
5. Lovebird (7%) 
6. Conure (6%) 
7. Amazon (4%) 
8. Canary (4%)
9. Dove (3%) 
10. Cockatoo (2%) 
http://www.appma.org/press/news_releases/2002/nr_10-02_3.asp

Of these only doves, canaries and finches do not belong to the parrot
family. The figures add up to more than 100%, indicating that some
people have more than one species as a pet. At least 84% of owners own
a bird from the parrot family. Therefore, there were at least 15.96
million parrot pets in 2001/2002, owned by at least 5.796 million
households.

Differing figures, from the Veterinary Medical Association and the Pet
Industry Joint Advisory Council, are mentioned in the first couple of
chapters of this article:
http://www.avianwelfare.org/issues/overview.htm


Growth rate
-----------

"According to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association,
birds are the third most popular pet in U.S. households, with 18.6
million in 6.9 million homes last year, compared with 12.8 million in
5.6 million households in 1992. In 1996... 13.5 million birds in 5.9
million homes"
http://www.parrotchronicles.com/spring2001/

According to the APPMA surveys, between 1996 and 2001/2002 there was
an increase in the number of pet birds of 37.9%. The number of
households with pet birds has not risen as dramatically, indicating
that the trend is for owners to each have more pet birds than before.


Search strategy
---------------

"parrot owners" million


Best wishes,
robertskelton-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by taylor123-ga on 09 Jun 2003 05:14 PDT

Regarding the APPMA's breakdown of bird breeds and your deduction of
the numbers of parrots and owners, what would the numbers be if, in
addition to the doves, canaries and finches, you factored out
cockatiels, parakeets and lovebirds?

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Clarification of Answer by robertskelton-ga on 09 Jun 2003 14:30 PDT

For just parrots, amazons, conures and cockatoos, the latest figure
would be 1.38 million owners of 3.8 million birds.

Thank you.