by Pajarita » Sun Jan 10, 2021 11:37 am
As I stated before, under the law and unfortunately for them, birds are property and owners can do whatever they want with them. Falconers are not and never will be bird lovers no matter how you slice it - it's the rehabbers that love them, not the ones that take babies from the parents to train them for their own purposes. That, by definition, is exploitation - the opposite of rescue.
You can post a million links to videos and a million links to postings of other people but nobody can verify if these things are actually true. I've been doing this a long time, Tommy -and I do mean a looong time and not only because of actual time passed but also in soul damage. People lie through their teeth, the internet is the biggest source of lies there has ever been in the history of humanity and I have had the misfortune to find this out by personal experience.... The Pa 'rescuer' who was, in reality, a bird flipper with an actual USDA license to breed. The other 'rescuer' (in upstate NY) who warehoused the rescued birds in breeders cages stacked four high from the floor up (imagine the stress of a parrot living in a cage on or close to the floor!). And the other 'rescuer' (in Ct) who only took adoptable birds and actually rented them out for commercials. Or the president of a bird rescue group (in Md) who allowed many animals to die from lack of water and food (supposedly, it was her husband who had done it). The president of a bird rescue (also upstate NY) who constantly begged for donations and was later found to have used the money to bail her criminal son from jail, pay his attorney, her own personal bills, etc and was keeping the birds in an empty church without heat in the middle of the winter because she had stopped paying the rent where the rescue was first located. The woman who 'loved' birds and poopooed on a solar schedule and a fresh food diet because she had kept multiple birds for many years and they were all doing GREAT without them but, when she suddenly dropped dead of an aneurysm and her husband called on a rescue to come and get the birds, they found a front room with good looking parrots (the ones that always appeared on her pictures and postings) and a back room they described as 'the little shop of horrors' with sick birds, filthy cages, etc. The owner of a highly recommended bird store in Manhattan that was actually not only hoarding but also starving the birds he had used to breed babies for his store (a member here spent an entire night removing half-dead birds from his house - many of these bird later died). And throughout all of this you have all the postings, pictures, personal recommendations, wonderful stories and videos that people thought represented the truth of these people's lives. A video means nothing. Anybody can film a 'good' video and state that they have been doing this for 20 years without any negative consequences. I no longer believe what people post, what they claim, what they film or anything that I cannot verify personally.
Can a flock of parrots like lovebirds be kept by providing nests and food in an open outdoor environment? Of course! But it would have to be in either their country of origin or one that has a very similar climate and flora. But that doesn't prove you can safely free-fly them in USA.
Do parrots suffer in captivity? Yes, they do - GREATLY! Should people keep parrots as pets? No, they should not. Not me, not you, not Michael, not anybody UNLESS they are scientists committed to captive-breeding for later released into the wild - and yes, there are success stories of reintroducing parrots into the wild. Breeding parrots for the pet trade should be illegal because it supports animal cruelty. Period. And, there are no 'responsible' or 'good' breeders - anybody who breeds should know, if they don't, that the babies they produce are all doomed to a bad life. But, of course, this is just a dream for the future because, realistically speaking, people either know this and are too selfish (they want what they want and if an animal has to suffer for it, then it will have to suffer) or too naive (they actually believe that they can give a parrot a good life in captivity) to support such a law and our lawmakers who could know better are all in somebody's pocket - PIJAC and the agricultural industries being very generous with their 'donations'. But I have hope that we will eventually evolve into a society that recognizes that animals have the right to live the kind of life they evolved to have and a humane death, if at all necessary, and that we do not have the God given right to exploit them for our own benefit. Needless to say, we are very far away from this goal but I still have hope...
You stated that "There is no unselfish way in keeping the parrots or any other wild animal (except rescue)" Agree in the sense that anybody who wants a parrot should adopt and not buy - but up to a point because not all rescuers are unselfish... and it might very well be that no rescuer is actually completely unselfish. For one thing, not everybody who calls itself a rescuer is actually doing it for the animals - believe it or not, a large number of them do it because they get their kicks from being called 'angels on Earth' (I HATE it when people say this about rescuers!) or some other such ego stroking nonsense. And still another large group does it because it satisfies their 'hoarding streak' (I've known many dog rescuers that keep a large number of dogs and cats in filthy homes and without medical attention under the guise of their love for animals). I know I am not unselfish and, if adopting/rehoming instead of buying is what a rescuer does then I guess you could still call me a rescuer even though I have not done it full time for years now (I used to be VP and in charge of the shelter of a dog and cat rescue group in Pa as well as ran my own bird rescue). But I am not unselfish and I seriously doubt that any rescuer is because, when you dig deep enough, we do it for ourselves. I am a person who is very honest with herself and I know I do. I learned many, many years ago that I cannot walk away or disassociate myself from a suffering animal. If I try, I suffer. I can't stop thinking about it, I can't sleep at night and I feel a constant deep remorse that eats and eats at me. I do not like to feel that way so I do not walk away. And that is how I ended up with way too many animals under my care. I do not go out looking for them but, if I see one on the street, I pick it up, and if somebody walks up to my door with one that needs help, I take it in (and people figure out pretty quick when you are the kind that can't say no). But I am the kind of person that learns from her mistakes and I have learned that I can only do so much. I learned this in Pa when I was sleeping 3 or 4 hours a night, working from 4:30 am to 11 pm every single day trying to keep up with the shelter where I either worked every day or supervised/trained volunteers, my dogs and cats plus the ones I was fostering (17 dogs and 26 cats in the house- and 240 birds). I was super underweight and my blood pressure was out of control and not only because of the work but also because rescue takes a huge toll on your emotional wellbeing - and I do mean a HUGE toll. It's day after day of heart and backbreaking, hopeless, unending work mixed with a deep sense of impotence that ends up eroding your heart and soul and your faith in humanity. But you do it because not doing it feels worse. So, no, it's not completely unselfish...
Look, I am sure that you think that you are doing the right thing but I do not see it that way. I am a mother and grandmother who happens to love animals and, to me, putting one at risk is anathema. And I am going to tell you something else. I might be wrong on this because I do not have personal experience but it seems to me that using the experience of falconers for parrot free-flight is the wrong thing to do. Birds of prey are completely different from prey birds. For one thing, birds of prey are territorial, they fly alone or in pairs. Parrots are highly social and fly in flock. Take where and how they fly. Birds of prey fly in open spaces way up high -they evolved to do this because their excellent vision allows them to spot prey from afar and to swoop down on it super fast. But parrots are prey birds that mostly either live in the upper or the lower canopy. They do not fly in open spaces - it is dangerous for them to do so. You criticized Michael's choice of a large park in the city for his birds free-flight and said that he should have done it in an open space (this is what falconers do) but that would be contrary to what nature evolved these birds to do. Senegals are woodland and savannah birds - they evolved to fly between trees, not above them, so a city park actually resembles very closely their natural habitat. And macaws are mostly rainforest canopy birds and they also do not fly in open spaces - not for long anyway because they do have flying predators -a danger here in USA, too. So, if I were you, I would consider the fact that falconers train for a type of flight that is completely unnatural to a parrot.