I think more people can keep pet parrots than you think and I dont agree with saying keeping parrots is bad because of a generalization. They’re good pets for the right home. Obviously pet store birds get bred badly but most people know that and go to private breeders even if they’re more expensive. A lot of people get parrots not knowing what they signed up for and thats THEIR fault.”Condemning” an entire industry just because some bad owners are bad owners shows you don’t have a good argument.

turings-deactivated20180627:

aviculture is the reason the sexual maturity of most macaws is bumped back as severely as it is. aviculture is the reason a 36″ x 48″ x 60″ cage is considered the “minimum” rather than “outright inhumane.” aviculture is the reason “get a baby for your first bird!” is such a popular statement, and it’s the reason adoption is considered “risky” or otherwise not worth it. aviculture is the reason that the opportunity to exercise through flight is seen as “optional” rather than a basic need every capable parrot should have. aviculture encourages and profits off of neglect if not gross abuse on a mass scale and it doesn’t matter if the breeder in question is industrial for pet store supply or a just a full time private breeder. they all support the same bad practises because those bad practises make an impossible to keep bird seem “easier” and that means they get more customers.

it is not possible to ethically, morally, etc. make a full-time living by breeding animals who when left to their own devices are very slow breeders even at their most “”successful.”” that’s why the only domesticated parrot, the english budgerigar, has a markedly shorter lifespan than its wild counterpart. similarly it does not matter how happy or well cared for that baby parrot is when behind her is the common and industry-accepted practises of splitting mated pairs, depriving pairs of enrichment so they have nothing better to do but mate (or get extremely aggressive with each other and/or kill one another, as is common with cacatuids for example), and creating tasty new hybrids regardless of the health risks those hybrids run (e.g. military crosses and their markedly smaller livers).

even the best breeder will cut many corners to make a profit and even the hypothetical not-interested-in-profit breeder is still actively and shamelessly flooding the already-inundated market with more parrots than there are homes to care for them. that’s why bird shelters are always overstocked and understaffed.

parrots, objectively, do poorly as common pets. you have to build your life around them to manage them well and that is in no way shape or form an exaggeration. ones that are properly cared for are in the extreme minority because people will buy these birds for the novelty of it and they’re goaded on by misinformation that’s leagues more popular than the actual standards by which they should be cared for. i don’t see it as fair to the birds themselves to point at a well kept cockatoo and say “don’t generalise! this is the face of parrotkeeping!” when the real face of it is a ratty, shaky, half-plucked bird who is no more than nine and yet doomed to live the rest of her 50+ years in the shelter she was dropped off to.