Birds Want To Be Free

I have always gotten excited by the sight of birds. I love to see them flying around happily. In the place I stay there is a type of bird called paradise fly catcher. It would sometimes come and sit on the trees near my window. I have always been very excited by its sight.

Many people like birds, so they keep them as pets. They keep exotic birds usually. Most people usually keep their pet birds in cages. But do you think these birds like to be kept in cages and not live in their natural surrounding, even if their owners like them a lot?

Most people don’t catch their pet birds themselves. Then how do they get their pet birds? There is a full industry around catching birds and selling birds as pets. In Mumbai city, Crawford market does a thriving business out of birds by selling them. Globally buying and selling illegally caught birds is a billion dollar business. 

But how do bird catchers catch these birds?

There are many ways of how bird catchers catch birds but I am only telling you one way. A bird catcher spreads a net and wounds one bird. The bird catcher then puts the bird in the net. As the bird cries out in fear and pain nearby flocks of birds responding to the injured bird's calls come to its aid. Soon the birds get entangled in the net and the net is drawn in with hundreds of struggling birds. Some birds break their wings from getting stuck in the netting while some others die of fright. Then they are stuffed in sacks one on top of the other because of which many birds die of suffocation.

Many more birds will die during transportation.

60% of birds die before reaching international destinations. This is what scientists estimate. Up to four times as many birds are captured than those that make it to the market.

Many exotic wild birds are getting extinct in the wild because of extensive bird catching. It is said that almost a third of the world’s 330 species of parrots are threatened with extinction due to being caught for the pet trade, combined with habitat loss.

The largest trade of wild birds in the world is in India. All of it is illegal, according to Mrs. Maneka Gandhi.

Anyway, once the birds have been sold then they will spend the rest of their life in cages unless they manage to escape. But would they be able to fend for themselves if they escape?

The poor bird now has to spend the rest of his/her life in a cage without her natural habitat, food, family and freedom.  Also the bird will be frightened, bored, lonely, hopeless and frustrated.

Many people don’t know how to take care of a bird. As a result, the bird will suffer even more.

These pet birds often are just an amusement for children. They are to be thrown out and replaced like a cheap toy. Often children might not be very kind to them. Once again the bird will suffer.

Many people have a desire for exotic birds, but very few people can cope with their exotic needs. As a result when their interest in the exotic bird wears off the birds become a victim of neglect or abuse. They are isolated in basements, passed from home to home, relinquished to a shelter or simply abandoned. Other birds end up in breeding facilities that resemble little more than warehouses.
Caged birds often become aggressive, neurotic and self destructive because of being driven mad from boredom and loneliness. They mutilate themselves,  scream more than usual, pull out their own feathers, bob their head, regurgitate, pace back and forth, peck at cage bars a lot and shake or even collapse from anxiety. 

Clipping wings to prevent birds from injury and to keep them under control is a common practice.

Because of having a horrible life like this the pet birds suffer a painful and premature death. So whoever are keeping pet birds are not only torturing them but giving them a painful and premature death. For example a parrot in the wild usually lives till the age of twenty, but a parrot in captivity is lucky to live till the age of 6 years according to Mrs. Maneka Gandhi.

Birds are always more amazing in the wild than in captivity. If we continue to catch birds for the pet trade than there will be very few birds left in the wild.

So let us stop keeping birds as pets. Birds want to be free, so let us let them be free. That way we can always watch them in the wild happy and free.