Alright, as most of you know I work at a doggy day care. And I get such fierce opposition about owning a bird. It drives me crazy and I get very offended with some of the comments about how a bird should fly free and all that. Yes, most birds should but people who own birds aren't criminals. I wonder if these people realise they've done worse to dogs than we have by owning birds. We didn't take 40,000-10,000 years of evolution (I forget the exact number) out of a wolf's gene pool and warp what would have been a masculine preditor and turned it into a chiuaua for god's sake! I think there's a divine difference between people who own more than one species, like cat people generally dislike dogs, and vice versa (I'm making a hypothetical generalization here before any of you comment on it being my opinion) but it surprises me how much both the cat owners there, and the dog owners, dislike the thought of owning a bird. It's no different than what those thousands of years of gene manipulation and selective breeding has done, wait, I think it is different. I'm not flaming dog owners or cat owners, I'm just voicing my astonishment and extreme resentment towards a few co-workers and wondering if anyone else has this experience. Like today during a meeting I got into a heated discussion with a co-worker discrediting bird ownership as inhumane. I countered with the argument I used above and she responded with the deportation of exotics into the states. I countered with the US embargo preventing the importation of parrots from other countries without quarantine and went through the details of it. Then she's like, "I still think it's wrong" Which I'm fine with, I won't change her mind, but she was so uneducated on the subject which just added some insult to injury that she'd pick a topic like that to come out with without having anything to back it up. I explained it to an extent but there's just no point in forcing it down her throat when she's not going to grasp it.


In short, how many of you are offended to an extent, or surprised when other people/pet owners tell you you shouldn't have a bird because it should be in the wild etc?

as sad as i would be without my babies, i know deep down inside that they belong in the wild. that being said, i don't think it is "wrong" to own a bird. i think it was wrong for humanity to pluck parrots out of their wild homes, yes. but I think it is our responsibility now to do the best we can to right that mistake, making good homes for the parrots that now exist outside their natural habitats. i really would love to see more captive parrot releases, but diminishing rainforests may prove difficult for that.

I'm never offended. My son's friends say "A bird? Like in a CAGE?". When I hear that I feel hopeful. That your generation will have more compassion for animals than mine has.

The issue is that dogs and cats are scientifically domesticated. In the DNA. But birds still are undomesticated. So their brains are wired as wild animals. And will be until the 1000th generation. Which wont be in our lifetime.

It's a very personal choice to keep an undomesticated wild animal in captivity, I think. There is not one single bird caretaker in my office of about 120 people. Not one.

My grandmother had a Budgie for 23 years who had company all day every day and even ate at the table. That was in the 1950-1960s. This Budgie was no different in behavior, though, than my current ones. A wild animal. So domestication is very slow.

If you're asking if I had a magic wand and could place all captive birds out of captivity forever and they would only live in their natural habitat? Yes, for sure. But I'm radical that way and it's not a judgement on people who don't feel that way. But I do.

I hope your thread doesn't start another big hoopla

BTW the wolf and dog dna seems to have split around 100,000 years ago and the oldest domesticated dog is from around 15,000 years I believe. And in the USA in Utah DNA'd at 11,000 years.

So birds have quite a ways to go living in a cage before they're dependent on man like dogs are. And Canaries.

i definitely agree with you, cindy

To tell you the truth, it doesn't offend me, since I'm pretty conflicted about whether we should keep them as pets myself. On the one hand, I love them dearly, and would fight pretty hard if someone tried to take them away from me, but on the other hand,.......well, down deep my conscience says they really should be flying free, shouldn't they?

I'm actually glad that "most" people seem to feel negatively about birds as pets. Can you imagine what the rescue situation would be like otherwise? When someone is at the house and sees my birds and asks questions about keeping birds, I usually try to play up the "cons" of bird ownership (the mess, biting, noise), as much as I point out how intelligent and fun they can be. With people I know darn well I wouldn't want to see own a bird, I don't even point out the "pros" at all.

I love the fact I have a bird, and don't mind that some aren't kept wild anymore. I don't like deforestation and all that and personally believe that there are enough birds in captivity now that there is absolutely no need to ever import wild birds again. But it just burns me that someone looks at my bird, says it's beautiful, then in a not so subtle way makes it seem like I'm the bad guy for having him in the cage. He's safe from preditors here, he's very well taken care of and loved, he doesn't have to worry about anything! Even if I had the opportunity to set him free and knew with certainty he'd live to be old, pair off, and fly free the rest of his life I would never give him up. He has no skills in my eyes to really fend for himself out there, and to me his my partner in the mental form and I need him around or I will get depressed or upset. Yeah it's selfish and I don't care who yells at me for it..... but I think for the birds, some would rather stay with us than go to the wild. You can just tell, with how much they love you that some even if they had the chance wouldn't fly out that window instinct or not, they'd want to stay with you.

You're right none of our captive birds can live anywhere in the wild. They have no skills even if they were parent fed. They can barely live in a giant aviary "normally" let alone stumbling around the woods.

I think when people say that they mean it philosophically. And also they have no idea about the giant trick we play on them by imprinting to a human. So they don't know they'd not survive out there.

Ditto! There's not a day that goes by that I don't say or think that these birds do not belong in my living room. My dream for them would be to have their natural habitats intact, safe from human predators and be free.

Right, the few that have been released through study programs are still supported with food and care.

I have to disagree with you.

How do you explain the flock of Parrots in San Francisco? Chicago? The Hawaiian Islands? Other places all over the world where there are flocks of wild parrots that are escapees from domestic situations?

Escaped "pet" birds have and do survive, live and reproduce in the wild.