Thoughts and Responsibilities on Aviculture
© February 23, 2000 Sybil Erden, Founder
The Oasis Sanctuary Foundation, LTD.

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Never in my professional life have I run into so many people in aviculture seeking the most simple of answers, willing to pay for the quick fix, and unwilling to educate themselves on the responsibility and commitment involved in having companion parrots.

Breeders are unwilling to recognize the reality that all too many birds are being bred; that there are already more babies than good homes, a fact proven by the drastic price decline, often to 35% or less than the price a mere five years ago. Breeders deny that the older birds (birds often no more than one or two years old) are becoming more and more endangered, physically by a dearth of homes, and psychologically by the instability of being bounced through numerous placements within a few short years. For highly social, intelligent and extraordinarily long-lived (40, 60, 80 or more years) animals, this situation is not in anyone's...owner or bird's...best interest. Apparently many breeders are unable to acknowledge, perhaps due to suppressed guilt, that they are breeding for profit; that "breeding for re-release" or breeding for "the gene pool" are excuses plausible to only the most credulous. Re-release of domestically bred birds, particularly those who are pulled from the nest as eggs or within the first few weeks of life, spoon-fed and imprinted on humans, would be a life-threatening improbability even if habitat remained. And the limited gene pool from which today's domestic birds come from is so rarely traced to insure no interbreeding and even more seldomly researched to weed out genetic defects, that tomorrow's bird, a bird being bred from what often are the least personable, sociable and friendly birds, is likely to become as much of its own dead end as the medically fragile "purebred" dogs of today are. 

Pet stores, bird food, cage and toy manufacturers, publishers of avicultural magazines, all rely upon the increasing number of birds and bird owners to continue bringing in ever-increasing profits. PIJAC (the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council) in Washington D.C., collects statistics from and for the commercial pet industry. According to PIJAC, over the last decade the avicultural portion of the industry has grown faster than any other. The number of parrots and other exotic birds in the US has grown from 14 million in 1990 to an estimated 60 million in 2000, while the homes have grown from 5 to only 6 million homes. A number of articles pointing out some of the problems of unwanted birds have recently begun to appear in bird-oriented magazines. Since these same magazines rely upon advertising from the very people and corporations who generate the problem, any meaningful discussion of workable solutions becomes an improbability. These same magazines publish articles about the "how to's" of breeding and simplistic solutions to behavioral problems...problems which all too often are the result of either hard-wired natural instincts in parrots (vocalizations, wood chewing) or the confusion brought about by human-imprinting (feather chewing, self-mutilation and mate killing.) 

All too often birds, parrots, are impulse purchases made by people who have little or no knowledge or understanding of the needs of these creatures. Often the buyer does not have the time to spend with the bird or the money for vet care and other basic needs. At other times people cannot handle the dirt, noise and destruction reeked by an insuppressible bird. And most often, even the most well meaning of novice owners has expectations of their new family member which cannot be met.

Birds are flock animals, highly social and interactive prey animals, whose psychology, biology, and physiology are so incredibly and diametrically different from our own...we, who are predatory animals, capably and often most comfortable alone. Our evolutionary development diverged from avian back when dinosaurs ruled the earth. And while canids and felines have coexisted and developed, become "domesticated" if you will, over a period of thousands of years, most psittacines with whom we share our lives are no more than a very few generations removed from the wild...if, in fact, they were not born there. It is an inescapable truth that if not for domestic or captive rearing of birds, most of these CITES I and II endangered birds will disappear from the earth due to habitat destruction and the encroachment of an ever expanding civilization, within the lifetimes of our grandchildren. Nonetheless, the type of captive breeding commercially being done today is in neither the best interests of the birds, who do not even know how to be birds, or of the breeders, whose ever-narrowing genetic pool is continually weakened by the breeding of birds who do not know how to breed and who are prone to neurotic behaviors.

In the author's opinion it is a sad reality that while we human beings instinctively desire to surround ourselves with companion animals, we are genetically incapable of committing to the lifelong care...a bird's lifetime...when we are pre-programmed to only care for our own young for at most a two-decade time span. We humans rewrite ourselves continually during our lifetimes. All too often the dreams and commitments made by teens are broken by the young adult beginning family and career. The new parent forsakes the companionship of animals, discarding them to pounds, humane societies, the streets and, at best, sanctuaries, in order to commit to a new and growing family. The middle-aged mother fills her empty nest once again with reborn career or pets. The retiree leaves spacious home and backyard for the simplicity of condo or apartment. At every step animals come and go. And while a cat or dog, whose lifetime of 15 years may be accommodated, even the best and most committed of homes cannot in most cases provide for an animal with a life span of 80 years - an animal entirely dependent on the care and flock-nurturing of its human caregiver; an animal with the intelligence and emotional dependency of a human pre-schooler or toddler.

Into this mix of money to be made and people wishing to love a beautiful and exotic animal, come the charlatans. Understand that this is not to say that there are not incredibly hard working and dedicated people giving up their lives to the well being and care of these birds, but the public all too often cannot tell the difference between the saint and the sinner. The qualified and the sham - now with the power of the internet, anyone with a spell check becomes an expert. The charlatans are those self-professed "professionals" offering the quick fix, the "answer", often implausible and unbelievable, the end to all problems. The ones who prescribe solutions which often make the animal "owner" or caregiver feel more comfortable with decisions made, decisions which are not always in the best interests of the animal, or in keeping with the true nature and needs that make the bird a unique and different (from us) creature. Aviculture is rife with self-trained behaviorists whose modifications all too often move against the nature of the bird, rather than modifying the human's behavior or expectations. More frightening are clairvoyants who "speak" to the animals, sometimes over telephones or via photographs, going so far as to communicate with dead pets! The frightening part of this is that so many believe.... Worse are the self proclaimed, unqualified, "adoption programs" or "sanctuaries" who in actuality take in unwanted free birds and sell them to unqualified homes, brokering these animals for lucre, no differently than the worst pet shops and puppy mills. Or who breed the unwanted birds claiming that the sale of the young will provide the money necessary to continue "rescuing" other birds....

How do we fight the desire in humans to have answers, any answers that take away the need for self-awareness, for responsibility, for taking the blame for poor choices? How do we sensitize the callous to the sensitivities of their non-human brethren? And how do we educate the caring to the subtle differences in the psychological and physical needs of our avian companions?