Soapbox time, sorry to interrupt but it’s something I feel strongly about.
I LOVE birds. Adore them. Obsessed with them. I see a vulture on the side of the road and I squeal because they’re so COOL. I plant honeysuckle outside my window to watch hummingbirds. I spend hours looking at bird photos for this blog. In some circles my name is “Auntie Birdie” and in others “Bird Lady.”
And I am strongly against parrots as pets… even though I own one.
She is a rescue, whose previous owners thought it would be fun and cute. When she was a baby, they adored her. Then she started to grow up, and so did her demands. They couldn’t keep up with having jobs and coming home to a screaming toddler every day, knowing that this was the next 40+ years.
So now I own her, but honestly she owns me. I lament every day that she wasn’t born in the wild with a flock. I am twisted into a pretzel trying to keep her engaged and happy, and it’s a full-time job, and it’s never enough. I love her with every beat of my heart, but I would still rather see her living in the wild where she belongs.
There are some days when she’s using her “oh no I’m lost my flock isn’t here” scream intended to travel through the rainforest… Inside my home… When I’m just a room away… I just think about the average person who wants a parrot, and I wish they knew.
They aren’t pets. They aren’t cute little cuddle things that talk. They aren’t the funny, silly things on YouTube.
They are wild animals that are meant to be flying free and foraging in trees and making nests and screaming as loud as they want as much as they want.
I wholly recognize that there are lots of people like me who dedicate much of their life, time, energy, and money to keeping their parrot happy.
But I also know, for a fact, how many parrots suffer. How many rip out their feathers from anxiety and depression and from being unable to cope with the stress of captivity; instead of a flock and an entire forest or plains or mountain, they now depend on you, in your home.
How many parrots are snatched from the wild to be sold as pets. To be forced to live and breed in small cages so their young can be sold as pets.
How many breeders see them as high value items, a market good. There are good breeders, but there are also breeding mills. There are parrots kept in a garage for the sole purpose of breeding. There are parrots who don’t get to fly, to play, to run around.
So if you really want a parrot, ask yourself this.
Are you ready to have a toddler for the rest of your life? Are you ready to be a parent whose child never grows up, never matures? Are you ready to have a pet that you can’t easily board when you go on vacation?
Are you ready to try to be a substitute for an entire flock, to be a substitute for the wonders of the natural world?
There are so many that are suffering. So many surrendered to rescues. Too many. Way, way too many.
Please think VERY CAREFULLY before buying a parrot, and then please still don’t do it.
