I see lots of parakeets and canaries in pet stores.
Why can’t you buy and own a cardinal or blue jay?
There’s a lot of problems associated with keeping cardinals as pets. First of all, there’s the plumage. Those scarlet gowns, the lace, the red caps and hats - doesn’t come cheap, you know. And the feeding! Have you seen some of them in pictures? Been hitting the local pasta shops pretty heavily, I’d say. And then there’s the migration patterns for the rituals associated with a new pope - you’d have to let your pet go on the drop of a triple tiera, with no assurance he’d be coming back - next thing you might hear, your former “pet” is now speculated as the “papabile” of the moment, or may even be seen perching on the balcony of St. Peter’s, waving to the crowds - that one’s never coming back.
Bishops are a much easier choice, or, if you’re concerned about the costs, try for a nice Franciscan or Dominican.
LOL:) 
Any of the enclosed orders will provide excellent pets for apartment dwellers and others whose space is limited, and Trappists have the added advantage of making no noise to disturb neighbours. However a pet from a missionary order should only be considered by those who don’t mind constantly going out in search of a strayed pet. Pets from the mendicant orders can be trained to beg very fetchingly.
I can keep this up for hours, you know.
I’ve heard that there is ample stock in Jesuits-they have the added advantage of being very smart and educated.
you KNEW we were going to do this, 'nilla.
No, I did not know you were going to do this!!
Should i have said a redbird instead?
Guin, keep it up and I will e mail you a nude photo of Nader…
It’s illegal in the U.S. to keep native birds unless you’re a licensed wildlife rehabilitator. Beats me why.
Well, to answer the OP, it’s illegal in the US to keep native bird species as pets.
Besides, from what I understand, Blue Jays are filthy birds that wouldn’t make good pets anyway (don’t know about Cardinals, though).
I thought ou were talking about baseball players. Neither one makes a good pet. They cost too much and demand fresh newspaper in their cages every day, whether they’ve done an interview or not, and they don’t give in to being spayed very easily. Plus importing a Blue Jay from Toronto is expensive and they need lots of shots.
And they go on strike at the least provocation, refusing to entertain you.
The reason given for the ban on pet crows is that they’re migratory. (Is it cruel to stop them from flying south?) Maybe the same reasoning was applied to other species. BTW I think jays are corvids too.
But it’s perfectly legal to kill as many crows as you want!
I’m sure also that it has to do with the status of the bird. Song birds are a protected species, and the restriction on owning them as pets has to do with preventing them from dying out in the wild due to over-harvesting.
Also, the fact that the cardinal is the state bird of Ohio (and possibly other states as well), might have something to do with it as well.
About the only thing truly preventing folks from keeping cardinal, bluejays, crows, and other native species as pets is the law. I’m not entirely sure of the rationale behind some of these laws, but you can’t keep native songbirds as pets.
I did know someone who kept a cardinal as a pet (rescued infant) once. It wasn’t any different than any other pet bird and was moderately social.
Also knew a kid once who had a pet crow. Used to sit on his shoulder as he ran around the neighborhood, learned to talk, did tricks - they’re really quite intelligent birds. I’d imagine bluejays would be simillar. These birds are no more “filthy” than any other wild bird or animal, by the way. The ones kept as pets don’t have to dig through garbage and roadkill for food, which helps their hygience considerably.
Not that I in any way recommend breaking any laws or snatching animals out of their wild habitat.
It is illegal in the state of Pennsylvania to take any native bird from the wild without a permit from the dept. of fish and game. The reason behind this is somewhat complicated- first of all, songbirds are protected in most US states. Over-harvesting earlier in the last century, over-hunting for much of the nation’s history, and more recently, the threats posed to native songbirds due to habitat loss and the introduction of foreign species which compete with and prey upon native songbirds have all conspired to drastically lower the population densities of many birds. This was explained to me by the woman under whom I apprenticed to become a certified wildlife rehabilitator, a former parks dept. employee.
Also, concerns over certain strains of avian cholera and tuberculosis were raised in the late 1960’s, with the fear that these diseases could either be passed to humans or domestic livestock. Many birds, corvid species especially, have also long been classed as ‘vermin’, a class of animals as defined by the dept. of fish & game, and having a specific set of laws relating to hunting and harvesting.
I have had several injured songbirds brought to me- the smaller ones tend to be exceptionally delicate and do not fare well, although crows are remarkably intelligent and adaptable. (Crows do not migrate, BTW. They are not songbirds.) In my senior year of high school, a rather aged crow was brought to me with a broken leg. It mended well, but due to the animal’s age, I elected to allow him to remain with me to the end of his days. I named him Moses and he lived in the house and loved to eat corn. He learned to poop in a plant pot, and could say a few words, including "hello’, “whachoo doin’?”, and “fuck!” He died of old age after two years. I still miss him. He had a habit of cawing extremely loudly to get attention, and if left to his own devices would steal and hide small objects around the house. His favorites were shiny things like tinfoil and cigarette-packages. I awoke one morning to find him dead on the living room floor, having fallen from his night perch atop the curtain rod. Fare thee well, Moses, wherever you are.
Anyway, yeah, corvids behave in the same way as many larger psittacines in captivity, although they seem not to have the same emotional problems. But of curse, it’s illegal to own one as pet. Also, crows are often plagued with mites, which are a pain in the ass to get rid of, and if you’re constantly letting the bird on your shoulder, they can be transferred to your clothing, although I’e never heard of a human with a bird mite infestation- mites tend to really specialize, even to the extent of prefrring to starve to death if they cannot find a suitable host.
It’s illegal because of the Migratory Bird Treaty Acts, signed by the US, Canada, Mexico, Russia, and Japan. This means to handle a bird, you need permits. You need permits to catch birds, given out by the Bird Banding Lab at Patuxent. With these permits, you can catch them, band them, and if your permit allows it, add color markers, radio-transmitters, dyes, etc. You can’t hold onto them for more than 24 hours, unless given special permission. If you want to hold onto a bird for a longer period (like rehabbing, museum specimens, analyzing dead birds for West Nile), you have to get a USFWS salvaging permit. This might be the permit that you need for taxidermy and holding ceremonial eagle feathers. In addition to these permits, you’ll most likely need state permits from the DEP/ag. To get permits, you’ll need to supply either proposals or information that indicate you have the skills necessary to handle birds (I indicate training under three mist-netters to get the special dispensation to mist-net. I have to carry all my permits in my wallet just in case the state or fed FWS sees me holding a bird. A bureacratic mess but not as bad as a few years ago when jurisdiction was not clear. Things boiled over when a prominent ornithologist nearly got jailed over a misunderstanding when brining in skins from Canada. He ended writing a mea culpa in AUK and the American Ornithologist Union got the leading permitting agencies to meet with us at our annual meeting to sort things out. Boy, those were interesting times!)
vanilla, as far as having a cardinal as a pet, you might want to try a nice, sweet-tempered parrot instead. Cardinals are equiped with nutcracking bills, and I can tell you, from first-finger experience, that they HURT. I mean HURT! They’ll grab just the right amount of skin, and yeouch!
And yes, jays are corvids: crows, magpies, jays, and ravens are all in the same family. Both magpies and crows have been hunted in the states, but you need a state hunting permit to do so. And you need to follow the order of the permit closely. A Wisconsin company got a depredation permit to coddle gull eggs from nests on their roof. One employee got a little too enthusiastic in his job, and began going after the adults, killing several. FWS came, and fined the company $15,000.
The USFWS takes the MBTA very seriously.
ratty, being a corvidologist, I’ve rehabbed several crows too, and they are terrific birds. One female that I kept in the lab would fly around and when she landed on the linoleum floor, she’d slide. She seemed to really enjoy that, but was afraid of the hallway. When she’d slide out of the lab into the hallway, she’d turn while sliding so she was facing the lab, and run back in. 
She tried to cache my keys off my keyboard (had to go find a few missing letters) and after she was released, we found a huge mummified mound of peanuts, raisins, dogfood and other goodies behind a bookcase.