Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds

The Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds, signed by the United States and Great Britain (on behalf of Canada) in 1916 was implemented in Canada in 1917 as the Migratory Birds Convention Act and in the US in 1918 as the Migratory Birds Treaty Act. In the US the Treaty Act replaced an initial law concerning bird protection with an international accord, more apt to cover the complexities of bird migration. The new statute made it unlawful to pursue, hunt, capture, kill, or sell birds listed in the statute’s stipulations as “migratory birds.” The statute, which lists over eight-hundred bird species, did not discriminate between living or dead birds, and also granted full protection to feathers, eggs, and nests. In the years that followed, similar agreements were made with Mexico, Japan, and Russia.