October 2009
Dear Birds, Humanoids and Elephants,
What happens when your moody, angry and otherwise insane scarlet macaw becomes your best friend once again? What happens, nothing, you just relax and enjoy it. My sweet wonderful Aristophanes is just that, my best friend. He is over his anger about me giving him his medicine and we are having wonderful times together. He is, once again, out of the cage all the time that I am home, and life with him is good.
I can’t thank Debbie Napolitano enough for taking care of our animals while Jackie and I went to Cape Cod. She even fed Wally, the evil Wyandotte rooster, while in the chicken war zone. Aggressive roosters are not the easiest birds in the world to handle, but Debbie did it and came out unscathed and alive! Actually, I got advice from a chicken loving friend. She said to catch Wally and carry him around with me while I am doing my chores. I do that now and it seems to work. He has stopped jumping at me, at least when he is in the coop. I showed him a soup pot (advice yet from someone else who said to make chicken soup out of him) but he laughed at me. Back to Debbie though, she is a terrific human being and she found a treat for Aristophanes that he loves. I now feed him dried vegetable chips every morning with his breakfast. He eats them ravenously and I always tell him that it is all because of Debbie that he gets them.
Emma is also coming back around. I will no longer EVER wrap that nape or that macaw in a towel to treat them.......too dangerous to our relationship. I will take them to the vet or have a stranger do it, let them hate somebody else. Zeke, like always, is an angel....but it is rare, not impossible, but rare, to find a bad tempered cockatiel.
The show is this weekend and I am so excited. This is our 19th show. Doris Booth began these extravaganzas 19 years ago, when our club was only 3 years old. Matt took them over when Doris wasn’t able to do them any more, and look at what we have become. Other than some sour grapes by people who look to find something negative in everything, we have been touted as having the nicest, most educational and bird-centered show that many people have ever seen. Our show projects love and humane treatment of birds, and that is the way it should be.
To that end, I feel that we can no longer, in good conscience, advocate the domestic breeding of parrots for the pet industry. There are too many parrots available for adoption all over the country. There are enough homeless parrots that soon we will be competing with the myriad numbers of homeless dogs and cats. The pet industry can be rapacious and cruel. Parrots are bred to make money; infant parrots are pulled from their horrified and distraught parents to be hand-fed for expediency, not necessity. Let us not forget that when a parrot in the wild loses eggs or babies, they produce more, ergo more parrots equals more money.
The problem ensues when these lovable, sweet, baby parrots are sold to an ignorant public and they grow into screaming, frustrated and angry adults that many owners cannot and do not keep, being totally unprepared for what they are encountering in their once adorable and quiet pet. People, of course, need to know what they are buying before they buy it. Many places that sell birds will sell to anyone, as long as the money is there. Baby parrots can be tamed very easily once they have fledged and do not need to be torn from their parents’ nest, unless, of course, the parents are not caring for them....There should be a moratorium on parrot breeding for the pet industry until the “surplus” of pet parrots is over. This is a problem that can only be solved when conscience replaces greed.
Let me say that there are many people of integrity, good faith and caring who breed parrots conscientiously. Many of these are learning that the wonderful baby parrots that are sold as life long pets, unfortunately do not end up that way and are eventually put up for adoption. I truly believe that the only answer, right now, is to stop the breeding, especially the commercial breeding, until the number of parrots that need to be re-homed abates dramatically.
I know that I get calls every week from people who no longer want a pet parrot that is in their care. Sometimes these are birds that have been with the same family for many years and very often these were beloved pets that, for whatever circumstances, are no longer wanted. Sometimes they are from situations that are intolerable and desperately need to be rescued. Either way they have become superfluous and now need a new home. There are so many people in my situation and too many birds in their situation and the only way to stop this is to stop producing these birds until all the homeless ones can be re-homed.
I read the report on the problem with feral cats and endangered bird populations and I agree with Matt, that the solution that these people pose is draconian, to say the least. It is so easy to just kill everything that gets in our way. Feral cats have an average life span of two years. If the trap, neuter and release programs are carried on carefully and successfully, there will be no new kittens to grow up and kill birds. The feral populations will die out and, hopefully, not be recreated or added to by careless humans who created the situation in the first place. The other part of this problem apparently comes from people with pet cats who let them out to “hunt.” These cats are not hungry. Please, either keep your cats inside, or put a bell on the cat so the birds hear them coming.
I wish everyone a very happy month. Enjoy our speaker tonight and her coffee. Next month we have Carol Cipriano coming back to us to present a wonderful program, she has created, on endangered macaws. Carol will have some of these macaws with her and she has asked me to ask our club members to NOT BRING BIRDS to that meeting......So, as much as I hate to ask you, please leave your birds home in November and hope they understand. We, as the Catskill Exotic Bird Club, will make a $100 donation to the World Parrot Trust in honor of this program.
I hope to see everyone at the show on Sunday, October 11th.......and I bet this is our best show yet.
With Love for all animals,
Richie
What happens when your moody, angry and otherwise insane scarlet macaw becomes your best friend once again? What happens, nothing, you just relax and enjoy it. My sweet wonderful Aristophanes is just that, my best friend. He is over his anger about me giving him his medicine and we are having wonderful times together. He is, once again, out of the cage all the time that I am home, and life with him is good.
I can’t thank Debbie Napolitano enough for taking care of our animals while Jackie and I went to Cape Cod. She even fed Wally, the evil Wyandotte rooster, while in the chicken war zone. Aggressive roosters are not the easiest birds in the world to handle, but Debbie did it and came out unscathed and alive! Actually, I got advice from a chicken loving friend. She said to catch Wally and carry him around with me while I am doing my chores. I do that now and it seems to work. He has stopped jumping at me, at least when he is in the coop. I showed him a soup pot (advice yet from someone else who said to make chicken soup out of him) but he laughed at me. Back to Debbie though, she is a terrific human being and she found a treat for Aristophanes that he loves. I now feed him dried vegetable chips every morning with his breakfast. He eats them ravenously and I always tell him that it is all because of Debbie that he gets them.
Emma is also coming back around. I will no longer EVER wrap that nape or that macaw in a towel to treat them.......too dangerous to our relationship. I will take them to the vet or have a stranger do it, let them hate somebody else. Zeke, like always, is an angel....but it is rare, not impossible, but rare, to find a bad tempered cockatiel.
The show is this weekend and I am so excited. This is our 19th show. Doris Booth began these extravaganzas 19 years ago, when our club was only 3 years old. Matt took them over when Doris wasn’t able to do them any more, and look at what we have become. Other than some sour grapes by people who look to find something negative in everything, we have been touted as having the nicest, most educational and bird-centered show that many people have ever seen. Our show projects love and humane treatment of birds, and that is the way it should be.
To that end, I feel that we can no longer, in good conscience, advocate the domestic breeding of parrots for the pet industry. There are too many parrots available for adoption all over the country. There are enough homeless parrots that soon we will be competing with the myriad numbers of homeless dogs and cats. The pet industry can be rapacious and cruel. Parrots are bred to make money; infant parrots are pulled from their horrified and distraught parents to be hand-fed for expediency, not necessity. Let us not forget that when a parrot in the wild loses eggs or babies, they produce more, ergo more parrots equals more money.
The problem ensues when these lovable, sweet, baby parrots are sold to an ignorant public and they grow into screaming, frustrated and angry adults that many owners cannot and do not keep, being totally unprepared for what they are encountering in their once adorable and quiet pet. People, of course, need to know what they are buying before they buy it. Many places that sell birds will sell to anyone, as long as the money is there. Baby parrots can be tamed very easily once they have fledged and do not need to be torn from their parents’ nest, unless, of course, the parents are not caring for them....There should be a moratorium on parrot breeding for the pet industry until the “surplus” of pet parrots is over. This is a problem that can only be solved when conscience replaces greed.
Let me say that there are many people of integrity, good faith and caring who breed parrots conscientiously. Many of these are learning that the wonderful baby parrots that are sold as life long pets, unfortunately do not end up that way and are eventually put up for adoption. I truly believe that the only answer, right now, is to stop the breeding, especially the commercial breeding, until the number of parrots that need to be re-homed abates dramatically.
I know that I get calls every week from people who no longer want a pet parrot that is in their care. Sometimes these are birds that have been with the same family for many years and very often these were beloved pets that, for whatever circumstances, are no longer wanted. Sometimes they are from situations that are intolerable and desperately need to be rescued. Either way they have become superfluous and now need a new home. There are so many people in my situation and too many birds in their situation and the only way to stop this is to stop producing these birds until all the homeless ones can be re-homed.
I read the report on the problem with feral cats and endangered bird populations and I agree with Matt, that the solution that these people pose is draconian, to say the least. It is so easy to just kill everything that gets in our way. Feral cats have an average life span of two years. If the trap, neuter and release programs are carried on carefully and successfully, there will be no new kittens to grow up and kill birds. The feral populations will die out and, hopefully, not be recreated or added to by careless humans who created the situation in the first place. The other part of this problem apparently comes from people with pet cats who let them out to “hunt.” These cats are not hungry. Please, either keep your cats inside, or put a bell on the cat so the birds hear them coming.
I wish everyone a very happy month. Enjoy our speaker tonight and her coffee. Next month we have Carol Cipriano coming back to us to present a wonderful program, she has created, on endangered macaws. Carol will have some of these macaws with her and she has asked me to ask our club members to NOT BRING BIRDS to that meeting......So, as much as I hate to ask you, please leave your birds home in November and hope they understand. We, as the Catskill Exotic Bird Club, will make a $100 donation to the World Parrot Trust in honor of this program.
I hope to see everyone at the show on Sunday, October 11th.......and I bet this is our best show yet.
With Love for all animals,
Richie