Blog Comments

Dianne: I went to the site and read the story about Sebastian. It certainly elicited my emotions. I'll offer my thoughts on the story within the thread that you started. I have some other things to take care of in the morning, so I'll submit my reply a bit later.

I just posted a thread in the Macaw forum that will take a while to digest. It is called The Story of Sebastian. I will be very interested in reading how you all feel about this story. It is about a very abused, neglected GW Macaw who ended up with a wonderful person.

Dianne: That's a difficult question to answer. If humans weren't destroying natural habitat for many species at an alarming rate, and if financial prosper and the various reasons that people kill parrots in the wild weren't huge factors in the diminishment of natural psittacine populations, then the issue wouldn't be nearly as bothersome. But those tragic elements have been ongoing issues for many decades, which is beyond disturbing for me . Very sadly, the collective of mankind does as it wishes with wild birds. Wild parrots simply have no choice. Yes, captive breeding is one method to perpetuate certain otherwise vanishing species... but at what price? There are so many throwaway and abused birds in captivity that I become ill just thinking about it . A great many folks who acquire parrots are quite careless and/or reckless in terms of implementing pet bird safety measures and health accommodations. And many such folks lose interest in keeping their birds and thus pass them to others who are as well less than optimal caregivers. It's for those very reasons that rescue facilities have become grossly overpopulated with discarded birds . And there's seemingly no end in sight to the cycle.

Breeding birds for profit is at best a double-edged sword. That is, it may help perpetuate various diminishing avian populations. But, at the same time, it results in many breeders selling birds before they have been properly weaned, and as well selling birds to anyone who is willing to pay their asking price (all in order to maximize profits). The birds that have not been weaned correctly frequently suffer permanent health complications, and often die prematurely. So while the for-profit breeding ventures may produce a lone positive (i.e., contribution to the perpetuation of certain species), there are some disturbing negatives associated with the practice. Conversely, the dedicated species preservation breeding programs are usually 100% positive if done correctly. But there are too few of those programs in progress to repair the enormous damage man has done to natural psittacine populations

Thank you, Alice. Parrots are pretty darn special to me!

Tony do you think parrots should have been made pets in our homes? There was a long discussion on this subject on AA as a result of the show a while ago on PBS. Of course the birds bred by breeders never saw or experienced what the wild life is like. However our birds still retain the wild nature. We need to do so much for them to keep our birds happy and healthy. Many bird owners do not do this so I imagine there are many unhappy, unhealthy companion birds which is very sad. TX

Great idea for a blog. It is nice to learn how others came to live with their birds.

Wow, what else can anyone say but Ditto! Beautifully written Tony.

Thanks Kendra!

Wonderful tribute to what sounds like a wonderful lady. Salsa certainly shows what a loving home he had with her and now with you.

Great to read the story of each of your guys!