Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!paul.rutgers.edu!pratt From: pratt@paul.rutgers.edu (Lorien Y. Pratt) Newsgroups: rec.birds Subject: Re: hookbills, you asked for it, you know, posting to rec.birds... Message-ID: Date: 14 Oct 88 21:51:20 GMT References: <1103@leah.Albany.Edu>, <1521@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 64 >My cockatoo absolutely hates anyone outside his few friends. But that is >expected, since he was caught as a wild adult. I have seen hand fed babies >going for $2400 and being as friendly as can be to the butcher. But that's >beyond my price range now. Anyway, I enjoy his jungle calls, which a hand fed >lacks. I hate to throw cold water on this discussion, because it sounds like you all love your birds and take good care of them, but I used to keep pet birds, too, until I realized that what I loved about them was their beautiful flight and how I dreamed of having an aviary of my own, and I realized that what I was loving was birds in their natural state! Then I heard about how so many birds die for each one that makes it to a pet store, and how more and more species become endangered every year, and how the rain forests are dwindling at an alarming rate, and I just can't justify the pleasure I get from seeing birds up close by their suffering. I got this poem from ``Lifeline for Wildlife", inc, in Stony Point, NY: How would you like to live in a cage that was just about ten feet square, with no toys to play with and nothing to do -- just you and a bed and a chair? Oh, sure you'd be fed (the same thing each day) you'd have water (unless they forgot) and since you would never be going outside you wouldn't get cold, or too hot. But oh, you'd be lonely just sitting alone with no one to talk to all day. You'd remember the trees, and the grass and the breeze, the places where you used to play. You'd remember your friends, you'd remember the sky, and games and strawberries and sun, and you'd know you could never go skating again or go swimming, or ride bikes, or run. You'd get mad and scream and throw things around; you'd kick and you'd pound on the wall, and your owners would scold you, and say to themselves, "He isn't a nice pet at all!" The more you got mad, the less they would like you, the less they'd remember to care about if you had water or if you got fed or if you were lonely in there. And then you would know what it's like to be kept as a pet when you're meant to be free, and you'd listen when wild things are trying to say "Please don't make a pet out of me". --Beverly Armstrong My solution has been to have a *whole flock* of pet birds: blue ones and red ones and yellow ones, right outside the livingroom. I have my own aviary: the nature preserve behind my apartment. I feed them with sunflower seeds, and I know that I'm doing my part to help birds out with what they really want: a natural environment, and enough food to eat. Now if they don't build condos over the preserve, I'll be all set.... -- ------------------------------------------------------------------- Lorien Y. Pratt Computer Science Department pratt@paul.rutgers.edu Rutgers University Busch Campus (201) 932-4634 Piscataway, NJ 08854