These men carry towers of birds through Mexico’s streets. They say their tradition is dying out.
SAN BARTOLO MORELOS, Mexico (AP) — For 32 years, Cruz Monroy walked the streets of a small town on the edges of Mexico’s capital, where a tower of tiny cages filled with rainbow birds stood.
The melodies of red cardinals, green and blue parakeets, and colorful finches fill the days of “pajareros,” or street bird sellers, like him.
The act of selling birds in stacks of cages, sometimes much taller than the men carrying them, goes back generations. They have long been a fixture in Mexican markets and are among the 1.5 million street vendors working Mexico’s streets.
“Hearing their songs brings people joy,” Monroy said; Dozens of bird calls echo from his home in the small town outside Mexico’s capital where he cares for and raises birds. “This is our tradition, my father was also a bird seller.”
During the Catholic holiday of Palm Sunday, hundreds of pajareros from across the country flock to Mexico City to decorate 10-foot stacks of trellises with bright flowers, tinsel and images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico’s patron saint.
They walk for kilometers through the streets of the capital with their birds and families, reaching the city’s iconic basilica.
But pajareros have gradually disappeared from the streets in recent years, in the face of increasing restrictions by authorities and harsh criticism from animal rights groups, which decried the practice as animal abuse and trafficking.
Monroy and others say they do not capture parrots and other birds banned by Mexican authorities, who say tropical species are “wild birds, not pets,” and that they generally raise the birds they have themselves and take good care of their animals. Even so, Monroy said the tradition is fading away in his family.
He said he wanted his own sons to find more stable employment in the face of harassment and mounting criticism from authorities.
“Many friends have left bird sales behind due to restrictions and harassment from some officials,” Monroy said. he said. “It’s no longer a stable job for my children. We have to look for other alternatives.”
