Opinion on Wild Caught Parrots

[Michael]

In retrospect, I suppose the most humane way of producing a pet parrot industry with minimal environmental/animal cruelty impact would have been to catch specimens of various species, breed them (as well as others to diversify the gene pool), return them to the wild, and continue the pet trade of parrots exclusively through domestic breeding.

[shanlung]

In retrospect, I suppose the most humane way of producing a pet parrot industry with minimal environmental/animal cruelty impact would have been to catch specimens of various species, breed them (as well as others to diversify the gene pool), return them to the wild, and continue the pet trade of parrots exclusively through domestic breeding.

Good only for breeders in first world countries that can maintain their monopoly!
I am sure those first world countries breeders love you and others like you.

Not a crack in the door for those miserable people who had to live with the parrots in the little wild places left for wild parrots.

So telling African farmers that African greys there are good only for the pot? and heads with no meat to be sold? After all, all parrots to be sold will be all done exclusively through domestic breeding

Or you find some way to legislate farmers cannot eat greys and they are to let the greys eat their crops and let their children go hungry?

Do tell me how humane is that?

And idle curiosity compels me to ask if you would have let the IRNs eat the heads of the sunflower plants unlike ruthless me who wrapped plastic bags around the heads to let them ripen for my parrot enjoyment.

[liz]

I think what Michael is saying is let the wild be wild and leave them at their fate. He suggestion capture or wild for a clutch then release the wild back to the wild after producing babies as pets.

[shanlung]

I think what Michael is saying is let the wild be wild and leave them at their fate. He suggestion capture or wild for a clutch then release the wild back to the wild after producing babies as pets.

Do tell me where do those pristine wild areas exist where wild parrots and wild beasties and birdies can still live in and left to their fate?

I lived too long a time. I have seen primordial jungles cut down time and time and time again to be turned into plantations and farmlands and housing estates in my part of the world. And we all know that happened just about every where in Africa and South America and about every where in the world other than for Antartica.

I want wild parrots to live on into the future as much if not more than any of you here.
And not be pop into a pot or a hole in a corner of some Australian fields. I guess Australian farmers have more $$$$ than African farmers and need not have to pop their Major Mitchells or GangGang or Yellow/Red tail Black 2s into the pot. Nothing less than lobsters or steaks on their barbie.

Ignorance is truly bliss, and maybe I should not have written here and left you folks happily chatting in righteous indignation to your heart's content.

This is my last letter as far as this thread is concerned.

[liz]

I think what Michael is saying is let the wild be wild and leave them at their fate. He suggestion capture or wild for a clutch then release the wild back to the wild after producing babies as pets.

Do tell me where do those pristine wild areas exist where wild parrots and wild beasties and birdies can still live in and left to their fate?

I lived too long a time. I have seen primordial jungles cut down time and time and time again to be turned into plantations and farmlands and housing estates in my part of the world. And we all know that happened just about every where in Africa and South America and about every where in the world other than for Antartica.

I want wild parrots to live on into the future as much if not more than any of you here.
And not be pop into a pot or a hole in a corner of some Australian fields. I guess Australian farmers have more $$$$ than African farmers and need not have to pop their Major Mitchells or GangGang or Yellow/Red tail Black 2s into the pot. Nothing less than lobsters or steaks on their barbie.

Ignorance is truly bliss, and maybe I should not have written here and left you folks happily chatting in righteous indignation to your heart's content.

This is my last letter as far as this thread is concerned.

You are wearing me down.

There is nothing I can do about people who don't use birth control and over populate into the wild and free areas.
I don't eat anything killed from the wild because I don't have to. That is not to say that the poorer people must refrain from eating what they find.
The pioneers and still today eat wild turkeys. We don't think much about it because we don't have that many turkey pets.
I had pet chickens when I was little. At 8 years old I came home from school and found my parents killing my chickens and putting them in the freezer. It wasn't until I was 44 and got sick that I was put on a stricked diet and had to eat chicken.

I feel sorry for the birds that have lost their habitat. I feel sorry for the poor farmers who need to defend their crops. If they must kill the birds by all means eat what has been killed.

Do you have a solution to the problem? Short of forcing sterilization of humans, I don't.

The Australians complain about cockatoos that they have grown in such number. In this country when an animal outgrows it's food supply the animals are culled (such as deer).

I guess eating the birds would be like culling to reduce the impact on food.

[Michael]

This is all completely irrelevant to the discussion of wild caught parrots as pets. The pet trade may not be the biggest threat to wild parrots but I think the point is that most of us would not like to have a parrot pulled from the wild merely for our enjoyment keeping it as a pet. We want our companions to be with us because they want to. Because they were raised into a human environment and know no other and not because they were trapped and sold.