May 31, 2024 was the 20th Anniversary of World Parrot Day. I didn’t know that we celebrated a World Parrot Day. Chances are, if I didn’t know about it, you may not have either. Now that I am aware, it seems a fitting opportunity to discuss the state of companion parrots in captivity today. (You’ll just have to overlook the fact that it has taken me a minute or two to decide what I wanted to say.)
I found it ironic that we have a World Parrot Day for celebrating parrots because I have this year grown in my awareness of just how many ways in which we do not celebrate parrots in real life. I speak with a lot of people, both clients and my mentees. I will share below three first-hand reports I heard this year that alarmed me and should create concern in you as well. I have, for obvious reasons, concealed the names of those involved.
Baby Parrots Sold from Stores
Example One: A parrot store in Seattle buys its stock of baby parrots from a breeder in Florida. Baby cockatoos and others are shipped that distance without heat while still in pin feathers. That same store offers poor training to hand feeders, guaranteeing that several deaths occur each year from aspiration (taking formula into the airways). If we understand anything about the needs of baby parrots and their development, we must respond with horror. This information came from one of my mentees who worked there until she couldn’t stand it any longer.
Example Two: A well-regarded parrot store in Colorado just had an adult large macaw die because of lack of veterinary treatment when she became ill, despite the problem being brought to the owner’s attention by employees. This was intentional neglect. The owner, once a champion of parrots, no longer cares enough to do the best for the birds and illness now creeps around the nursery killing babies before they can even hit the sales floor, despite the fact that the aviary continues to be advertised as “MAP certified.” Parrots in cages receive rough handling from the owner’s partner. Even customers now notice that problems exist. This information also came from one of my mentees who has intimate first-hand knowledge.
Example Three: A large, very popular, parrot store in Florida also has a bad disease problem in the nursery. Baby parrots in the nursery die from disease and the store owners are unresponsive when employees express concern. On the sales floor, this store appears to celebrate parrots with every type of toy imaginable. If you went in there, you would never know that this operation exists on the backs of dead baby parrots. This store also sells unweaned babies to inexperienced owners – a practice that we knew 30 years ago endangers them. While most of them survive the experience, changing hand-feeders and environments sets them up for a myriad of problems in later life.
We are farming baby parrots and they are dying because of our need to buy them in stores, to satisfy our urge for immediate gratification. This is sick. We stopped selling puppies and kittens from store fronts, understanding that breeders who sell to those stores are typically puppy mills. We now have parrot mills that supply the parrot stores. This must stop.
The Intelligence of Parrots
Irene Pepperberg gave us our first look into the intelligence of parrots (1). She stunned the public with videos of Alex, the African Grey, performing tasks and answering questions at the level of a 5-year-old child. After being amazed for a quick minute, we promptly forgot that information and proceeded to treat them as if they are barely conscious. If we are to believe Pepperberg, this means that we are selling birds with the intelligence of school age human beings from stores. We must question this.
Parrots are Products
I think it’s because we view a parrot as a product. Parrots in our world are treated as products. We relate to them differently than we do dogs and cats. We tend to lump dogs, cats, and birds into the same category of “pet” or companion animal, but the ways they came to us as such were very different. This difference impacts the way that we view them. Perhaps the best illustration of how we treat parrots as products is how we now hybridize them to get prettier colors in hopes of getting higher prices, while the process does nothing to benefit the individual or the species.
A good example of such a designer parrot is the Sunday Conure, a cross between a Sun Conure and a Jenday Conure. These are two species that would not normally encounter each other in the wild. Sun Conures are endangered. Captive breeding in the future may be the only hope for the species. If we begin to hybridize the Sun Conure with other conures in captivity simply to satisfy human whims for a certain color bird, we may destroy the potential for reintroduction of Sun Conures back into the wild should they go extinct (as Blue-throated Macaws did). There are always unintended consequences for actions. We must not dilute each of these amazing parrot species through hybridization simply for money.
Examples abound of how we view parrots as products. Look at this box of African Grey babies. A screenshot from a breeder’s Facebook page. This is unconscionable. Would we do this with puppies or kittens?
And then, there’s always that pesky question waiting in the wings – should we be benefitting financially from species that we have stolen from the wild?
Domestication
Dogs and cats were domesticated through a process that benefitted both animal and human mutually. As wild wolf packs and groupings of humans began to live in closer proximity to resources, some wolves were genetically tamer and more easy-going. They recognized the benefit of warmth from the fires that humans made and learned to creep closer to those. Humans soon recognized the benefit of having the canines around when it came to fending off predators and began to provide food to them. There was mutual benefit. From that point, the relationship between people and dogs developed into the form it takes today. Cats came to live among us through a similar process.
There was no mutual benefit involved when we captured parrots, clipped their wings so that they couldn’t get away, and began to keep them in cages for our sole pleasure. We stole them from their lives in the wild. There has never been a benefit to them, although most find a way to co-exist amicably with us. This is testimony to their adaptability, flexibility, and social intelligence. Our parrots are heroes.
If those of us in the “bird world” truly love and celebrate parrots, we must become more concerned about their quality of life, from the moment of hatching to the moment when that spirit leaves the body. We must revise our view of them. We still use practices today that we knew with certainty decades ago are harmful to them. As long as 30 years ago, veterinary and behavior professionals recognized that incubator-hatched parrots are at a disadvantage for their entire lives. Such an intelligent species must have contact with their parents in order to develop properly, without severe deficits. And yet, this practice continues unchecked.
The Needs of Baby Parrots
Baby parrots, intelligent and sentient, need time with their parents to learn critical information and to receive the nurturing that is rightfully theirs. And what of the parent birds who have their offspring removed time after time and yet are kept in this cycle of reproduction for our pleasure? They to date have received no consideration. We must move toward a day when parent-rearing of baby parrots is the norm.
We assumed early on that a parrot would not later be a tame companion if we did not take over the nurturing by hand-feeding. This is untrue. Baby parrots learn from their parents. If you allow a pair of companionable parrots to raise their own offspring, those babies will be as “tame” as their parents. If the parents step up for you, so will their offspring. Hand-feeding is not necessary. I have seen this first-hand.
Wing Clipping
Further, we continue to clip wings as an accepted practice. Some veterinarians even continue to promote this destructive approach to keeping behavior in check. In truth, it is unethical to remove the ability to move around freely from another species, especially one that is so close to us in intellect. Further, it is not necessary to solve aggression or any other behavior problem. In reality, it often makes aggression worse. European countries have begun to make this practice illegal, although it continues to go unquestioned in our own.
We are not celebrating parrots by preventing them from moving around at will. In exchange for the magic of sharing our lives with them, we must learn how to live with them in a flighted state. It is not difficult and I help clients with this all the time.
Social Medial as Enemy Number One
Any discussion of a parrot’s quality of life must include the quality of information on social media. This is the place we all go to get information. Are you surprised if I tell you that 98% of the information online about parrots is not true? Here are just a few statements regularly found online in parrot groups that are false:
- Parrots need 12 hours of darkness and quiet for uninterrupted sleep.
- Cockatoos need cuddling.
- Parrots need shoulder-time or other close physical contact.
- Parrots need regular nail trims and bathing.
- It is okay to keep multiple parrots together in a bird room.
Why do these myths persist? A few reasons. It’s human nature to want to give advice online. It embellishes our emotional resumes if we can sound like we know something about parrots when on social media. And so, we repeat what we believe to be true even though we have not bothered to verify it by seeking out more reputable sources.
Mainly though, people continue to believe untrue information because of something called the Illusory Truth Effect (3). This is described as a glitch in the human consciousness that allows us to believe that things are true just because we see or hear them many times. The best example of the Illusory Truth Effect in practice is the advice that parrots need 12 hours of darkness and uninterrupted sleep each night. Almost every client who comes to me believes this. Yet it is 100% untrue.
Our natural world is the same natural world that parrots live in when wild. There is a moon that provides light most nights. It is not quiet in the wild. Nocturnal animals move around, including nocturnal predators. Weather occurs at night too, not just during the day. Further, many bird species including Half-moon Conures, display hemispheric sleep. They sleep with only one hemisphere of the brain at a time. This is a means of maintaining predator detection and has been found in most orders of birds.
If you engage your critical thinking skills, you can’t possibly believe that parrots need 12 hours of quiet and dark for a good night’s sleep! And yet, people keep repeating this nonsensical bit of advice right and left. They repeat it because they believe it and they believe it because so many other people do. The thinking is that so many people cannot be wrong. Surprise.
As a side note, liars know all about the Illusory Truth Effect. For example, some politicians continue to repeat the same lies, knowing that others will believe them if they repeat the lies often enough. (4)
Turning the Tide
We’ve got to do better. We must do better!
Here is what I have been up to. I haven’t been posting regularly and some of you may be wondering what is up with me. I have been focusing my attention on my mentoring program. If I can teach others to do what I can do to solve parrot behavior problems, we can do far more good than I alone might achieve. I have been consulting for so long now, I rarely find a behavior problem that I can’t solve.
I now have a solid group of approximately 20 mentees who are at varying stages of their training. Hyke Bouktan, located in the Netherlands, has been working as a consultant for some time and has published a book about parrots. Dr. Amy Zhao is helping both small and large parrot owners through her website https://thebudgieacademy.com. A few others are getting ready to launch their businesses in 2025 and for others it will be a couple of years yet. One of the best outcomes of this process has been that we now have a very supportive group of professionals that is not plagued by the politics I always found in other groups of parrot behavior professionals. We will be a force in the future for better quality of life for companion parrots. I also continue to consult with parrot owners around the world. This is my way of helping one parrot at a time.
In addition, I am currently participating in a focus group project, the goal of which is to generate a document that parrot owners can use to self-evaluate their own parrot’s quality of life. I and a few other experts are working with Andrea Piseddu from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria and Yvonne van Zeeland, DVM, MVR, PhD, Dip. ECZM (Avian, Small mammal), CPBC. We will be developing criteria guidelines for evaluation of companion parrot welfare. I could not be more excited to participate in this project. We are currently anticipating our second meeting.
That’s what I’ve been doing. What can you do to help? Consider this article as a call for all of you who love parrots to assist in any small way you can. I suggest the following steps each of us can take individually.
Proposed Action Steps
- Do not purchase baby parrots from stores. Find a reputable breeder if you must purchase a baby, a breeder who does not clip wings and weans babies according to their own internal time frames.
- Do not buy supplies at stores that sell birds. Yes, it’s fun to go and look at the birds and enjoy immediate gratification when buying a new toy or other supplies. But, this is one step that will be important. Vote with your dollars.
- Stop repeating information unless you have verified it or have taken it from a credible source. If you learned it on-line, it is probably wrong. Parrot experts do not hang out on-line in parrot groups. Learn to identify reliable sources.
- If your avian veterinarian causes your parrot to be fearful during exams and sample collection, speak with your vet about using less forceful practices. Ask them to take the Fear Free certification program (3). We must all lobby for better treatment for your parrots when in the veterinary clinic.
- Last, always consider allowing flight in the home for any parrots who are capable. Not every parrot is a candidate for flight, especially if he has had his wings clipped for several years. Heavy-bodied parrots like Amazons can have a much harder time regaining flight, especially if the bird never fledged in the first place, as many have not. It is best to have a professional experienced with flighted parrots evaluate your own and make recommendations. At the very least, you can determine that any future birds you might acquire will enjoy flight.
This article barely touches the tip of the iceberg when it comes to examining quality of life for parrots. Please join with me in working toward a better quality of life for all companion parrots. They truly are heroes and deserve a community of caregivers focused on finding the real truth about their needs and dedicated to providing a creative, stimulating environment for them in our homes that allows for the ability to display natural behaviors and make as many choices as possible.
Resources:
- Pepperberg, Irene Maxine. The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots, Cambridge, MA and London, England: Harvard University Press, 2000.
- Udry, J., & Barber, S. J. (2024). The illusory truth effect: A review of how repetition increases belief in misinformation. Current Opinion in Psychology, 56, 101736. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2023.101736
- https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674041993. Fear Free Veterinary Professional Certification Program. https://fearfreepets.com/courses/fear-free-certification-program.
- Hassan, A., & Barber, S. J. (2021). The effects of repetition frequency on the illusory truth effect. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 6(1), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00301-5
Thank you for reading my blog. I am Pamela Clark, a Certified Parrot Behavior Consultant. My passion is helping people with their parrots, with any problem large or small. To access free resources, schedule a consultation, subscribe to my newsletter (a different publication, or purchase my webinars, go to http://www.pamelaclarkonline.com.
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