Parrots Are NOT Pets

[cml]

I opened my home to these little guys. Some I know were living terrible lives and the others can't tell me what they have been through. They are my family. I treat them like children and they learn that way. Even my cockatiels in a flock know their names and each other's. My furries are the same. If I call one and it does not come, one of the others will go look for it.

They are my family. Every last one of them.

Welcome back liz, I havnt seen you on the forum for a while =)!

[pionus]

first of all, sorry if i go into a long winded rant about how much i HAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTEEEEEEE humanity.


i agree with you grey_moon, 100%. other animals ("other" meaning not humans) being kept and owned by us should not be allowed. what gives us the right to keep them confined in our weird little houses as slaves to our will? i can tell you that they didn't.

Marie83 wrote
Completely agree with the whole damage to their habitats etc, however 2 wrongs have never made a right. Its time we people started taking responsibility and stopped breeding so much and taking over the planet, one day theres going to be nothing left to take and every species will become extinct, including us.

i agree so much with you. free breeding of humans just because we are either so stupid to have sex all the time and then woops im pregnant! should not be allowed. the number of children we have should be limited.

in fact, i would be totally fine with humans being the first ones to die off. i hope we are! and if need be, go all shoulder - to - the - wheel, meaning that we have to prove ourselves and earn our right to live on this planet. (and just to clarify about the whole dying out thin, i am not talking about individuals, just humanity as a whole.)

i blame grain for about half of this whole situation. if we hadn't of had cultivated it, there is a 95% chance that we would still be foragers moving from one feeding place to another. having no pets, instead of congregating into strange little communities .

i think my human rant is over, now on to parrots.


a few things that i think humans HAVE to do to keep parrots from going extinct is:

.STOP BREEDING. both birds and like i said above humans.

.if we breed birds at all, breed them for raise and release. and if not that, than the best possible conditions and adopters that we can achieve.

.stop taking over their habitats! they need it a hell of a lot more than we do.

those are just a few things that i can think of off the top of my head that we can do to stop parrots and other animals from dying out.

[GreenWing]

i agree with you grey_moon, 100%. other animals ("other" meaning not humans) being kept and owned by us should not be allowed. what gives us the right to keep them confined in our weird little houses as slaves to our will?

Well... it's difficult to make these strong statements when we DO keep birds. Whether you choose to call them pets, family, YOUR owners (because Tiki is certainly mine lol), if you really feel this strongly, then why "keep" or "have" animals at all?

I am with Friend2Parrots in that our birds won't let us "own" them... Tiki certainly owns me!

i blame grain for about half of this whole situation. if we hadn't of had cultivated it, there is a 95% chance that we would still be foragers moving from one feeding place to another. having no pets, instead of congregating into strange little communities

Noooooo don't blame teh grain!

We may not exist now if it weren't for the scientific inventions that happened because of the agricultural revolution (e.g. antibiotics). If we still hunted and gathered, we'd never achieve the scientific knowledge we have. And besides, with our big brains and usage of tools, surely the agricultural revolution was inevitable.

Now, I do see and appreciate your point and, as a staunch environmentalist and animal rights activist I agree with your core message. Eventually, something's gotta give about the world population issue, but notice that the education of nations is what helping. Look at Brazil, they've pwned their population issue with women's education in particular. I have hope that we as a species are intelligent enough to overcome the issues we have.

[pionus]

greenwing wrote
Well... it's difficult to make these strong statements when we DO keep birds. Whether you choose to call them pets, family, YOUR owners (because Tiki is certainly mine lol), if you really feel this strongly, then why "keep" or "have" animals at all?

I understand what you are saying, but seeing as the animals that i keep in my home were either being given away and needed a home, and were in a tiny cage with four other of it's kind i think i made the right decision on taking them.

greenwing wrote
Noooooo don't blame teh grain!

Unless you hunt for your own food/a vegan who grows your own food and built your own house from your own found materials, it's also difficult to attack the agricultural revolution when you, too, partake in technology of various forms. You may not even exist now if it weren't for the scientific inventions that happened because of it (e.g. antibiotics). If we still hunted and gathered, we'd never know the scientific knowledge we have. And besides, with our big brains and usage of tools, the agricultural revolution was inevitable.

Now, I do see and appreciate your point and, as a staunch environmentalist and animal rights activist I agree with your core message. Eventually, something's gotta give about the world population issue, but notice that the education of nations is what helping. Look at Brazil, they've pwned their population issue with women's education in particular. I have hope that we as a species are intelligent enough to overcome the issues we have.

why not blame grain? sure we may have advanced in certain aspects even if we hadn't cultivated it, but it might have been in a different way.

also i just have to put in that brain size as nothing to do with the amount of "smartness" one could have.

and i don't really care about the scientific knowledge we have.

AND i wouldn't care if i didn't exist today because i wouldn't be around to!

yes i do take advantage of the technological resources we have, but if i had the means, i would live differently.
plus, my whole family doesn't eat grain.

i don't mean to sound offensive, i am just saying what i think.

[marie83]

Well i used to have pets cuz I was a selfish Tw** and very ignorant.

Now I have pets because the ones we currently have in captivity cannot survive in the wild so they need homes with people who are doing the best they can to give them the most decent life they can possibly have in a captive environment. Ollie was the only one I deliberately sought from a breeder and knowing what I know now, he will be the last one.

I don't think anyone expressing these views can be called hypocritical or condescending. The only hypocrits are the ones that say this that and the other shouldn't happen and then do it anyway...not the other way round.
Its like saying you can start a fire in the depths of the ocean, sooner or later you got to learn that it isn't the right way to go about it and learn how to do it properly. If people didn't change their minds about things humans would never achieve anything.

"we" as a species are intelligent enough to over ride that but the fact is the majority are too damn greedy and dont care what state the planet is left in in the future cuz they wont be around to see it.
Others kind of know but prefer to stick their heads in the sand because its easier and less worrrying.
Some want to try to do something but aren't in a position to do so.
Others go the opposite way and go a bit crazy stockpiling food and all sorts.
The latter two types of people are definitely in the minority.

[pionus]

100% agree with you marie.

[GreenWing]

I understand what you are saying, but seeing as the animals that i keep in my home were either being given away and needed a home, and were in a tiny cage with four other of it's kind i think i made the right decision on taking them.

But you still keep parrots, that's my point.

Hey, I agree that there's birds in inexcusable living situations and thinking about that just breaks my heart. I think it's awesome that you have given your parrots a better life. However, I don't agree with the "having parrots is a bad thing" perspective; I find it to be a blanket statement. I agree with the commentary shared by Friend2Parrots.

This forum is filled with amazing people who love their parrots... is it productive to make people feel bad for having parrots? I would say no. I think it's far more productive to ask ourselves how we can help parrots, how we can educate others on these issues, and how we can help the planet ourselves in building awareness.

why not blame grain? sure we may have advanced in certain aspects even if we hadn't cultivated it, but it might have been in a different way.

also i just have to put in that brain size as nothing to do with the amount of "smartness" one could have.

There are good and bad things that have happened as a result of the agricultural revolution, but blaming grain itself doesn't make sense.

Brain size is extremely important in the context of human evolution. It helps us understand our origins, as well as our intelligence in the past in relation to the present.

and i don't really care about the scientific knowledge we have.

That's too bad. I love science; it is our tool to understanding ourselves, our environment, and our means to tackle current world problems. Example: Birth control is a product of science. We want birth control as a means to keep the population down, right?

i don't mean to sound offensive, i am just saying what i think.

Not offensive at all, dear, I appreciate the good conversation. I hope I haven't offended you, as well.

[friend2parrots]

ah! this has got to be one of the most exciting threads on the forum! thought I would just kinda read along after my long-winded posts earlier on but I just couldn't resist posting again...

first off, whats done is done. we can't undo whats already happened in human history... what we can do is think about and work toward the kind of planet we want for the future - both fifty years from now, and five centuries from now. for me, its a planet with people AND parrots AND all the other species of creatures out there, including those funny ugly glow in the dark deep sea creatures that I've never met (and never really do want to meet, to be honest )

if we breed birds at all, breed them for raise and release. and if not that, than the best possible conditions and adopters that we can achieve.

pionus, this is precisely what I think too! if you havent had a chance to read my earlier posts in this thread, check them out - i talk about this there!

it seems like everybody is pretty realistic about the extent of habitat destruction out there. seems like we all agree that wild parrots arent going to have anywhere to live in the wild in about 50 years time. where a lot of us seem to disagree is what to do about this impending problem.

i think we need to encourage humane captive breeding today, so that parrot species will continue to exist on earth 50 years from now. the wild ones can't do it on their own. they need our help to exist on this planet at this point. if we don't breed parrots, then they will just die off within the century. thats just the hard, bitter reality. we need to decide whether we want a world with parrots a century from now. if we do, then we need to breed them today, humanely.

But you still keep parrots, that's my point.

ahah! this is something none of us on this forum can get around!!

i LOVE this thread! the topic is depressing, but the discussion is SO EXCITING !!!

[Michael]

If you buy into any of this logic that I'm seeing here, then those of you how disagree with owning parrots as pets but have rescues are JUST AS GUILTY for buying into the industry. For every bird you rescue, someone goes out and buys another. I know tons of people who buy a bird to keep for the first few years while it's cute and cuddly and then hand it off to be someone else's problem so they could buy another baby. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with rescuing birds and agree it's important, but don't go acting all high and mighty like you aren't a part of the problem too.

There's nothing wrong with keeping parrots as pets as long as it is done responsibly and with the best possible treatment of the bird. Education, patience, and care is what it all comes down to.

[marie83]

Honestly I don't believe anyone is acting all high and mighty.
We put opinions across, other people put opinions across and that is how we learn.

You do have a point about rescues being part of the problem- but if there wasn't breeders putting more out there the circle would stop eventually.