Parrot Nation

Patricia – – Your message is clear, on target and expressed in a meaningful, respectful way. There will always be people “out” there that must muddy the water in an attempt to make their point, and will viciously attack anyone that dares to disagree. It’s all about control, and when you disable someone’s control, you’ve basically disabled their power. Disabling an attacker’s power? Silence speaks volumes, as does ignoring the insults, comments and accusations that may be leveled in your direction. The attackers usually want a fight, but how can they have a successful fight if no one will participate? In the end, all of the fighting, verbal assaults on Facebook, etc., do nothing but raise the stress level of those involved (including the attacker) and all of this negativity trickles back to the birds. Get into a brawl on Facebook, in an e-mail or a phone call, and your birds know that you are distressed. Why would anyone want to subject their bird(s) to this stress? Facebook is the perfect medium for people to stay semi-invisible, as well as an opportunity to get an instant gratification message out, be it a pleasant one or a vicious attack.

Before Facebook & e-mail, if someone wanted a fight, they could call, send a letter or do this in person. A high majority of people are not comfortable with confrontation, and would feel safer leaving an unkind voice mail when they knew the other person wouldn’t actually answer the phone. There was a process involved, and a majority of people back then would think twice about doing a face-to-face confrontation with someone they actually liked. The benefit of face-to-face is that if you care about the person, you have an opportunity to “see” them, experience the emotions involved, and try to work through the issue. With FB or e-mail, one can type it out, hit enter and it’s gone; whether a vicious insult or a kind word. Instant gratification is often precipitated by a knee-jerk reaction – – without allowing time to process what has happened and allowing a “cooling” off period of time before reacting.

When the flaming begins and the insults are hurled, no reaction is often the best reaction. You can’t start a war if no one shows up. You can still be attacked, but the attacker will run out of steam if no one opts to “play” this power game.

Thank you for all of your wonderful posts!

Janelle

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I love your blogs and read them, appreciate them, and more often than not get a lot out of them. This one is disheartening as I would miss your blogs if you decided to stop as a result of others having superiority complexes, jealousy, or a brain damaged with one way thinking. I have a Macaw and a small parakeet that get along better than most people do. One would think that with the common interest for Avian welfare that we would have reason to be more like these two unlikely friends. And yes before anyone jumps on me…they do have their own cages. And when they are out and about they are supervised.

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I’d like to just requote myself, because I think my point was missed. First, I make very little money as an avian vet tech. My charges for grooming have stayed the same for the past 15 years. Many times, my grooming visits include advice on feeding, medical, and behavior, with no extra charge. When I speak at events, I never ask for money. I take in greys that need a second chance, and I pay for their vet care, food, and never ask any money from the new home. I don’t get to go to conferences because I can’t afford the price of admission, the airfare, nor the hotel stay. I barely can afford to go to the movies. I do all this because it’s necessary. Period.

When many people get into breeding parrots, they learn quickly how hard it is to earn a profit. The first things that go are proper feeding and medical care. I know a lot of breeders will chime in that they don’t do that, and if so, then I’m not talking abou them; however, I am talking about most. I know this because I have dealt with breeders for the past 18 years.

When people like Barbara Heidenreich come and speak to bird clubs, her bottom line is what comes first. Yes, she has every right to charge for her speaking, but let’s call it like it is. It’s a money-making enterprise. That enterprise is so important to her, she will say it’s not good to keep birds hungry, yet that’s exactly what she does. She let other people’s parrots go without food for over 6 hours so that she could get the desired results in order to sell a product.

I know that highlighting these two things, the business of selling birds, and the business of selling behavior, but I wanted to give examples of what my statement was about. There are more, but these are the first two the came from my fingers.

I’m all for helping parrots, and if someone can make some money that’s fine. There are good stores, breeders, food companies, etc. out there, and they should get our business. However, everyone who shares their lives with any nonhuman animal needs to question the motives of those earning a profit off our companions. When we know the bottom line can be more important than people, why is it so hard to think it happens even more with animals.

Here’s a third, the food industry:
http://speakingforparrots.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/parrots-incorporated-the-big-business-of-food/

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Great article about a problem that is not just restricted to the bird world, sadly. Human beings have the means to make the world a better place, and simply choose not to. Is it our survival instinct, our competitive nature, or something else? I have no idea.

The best thing one can do is to improve what you can in the world, and ignore (where possible) those who choose to always be negative. Sometimes, just sometimes, you can actually turn them around too. For the sake of our beautiful birds it’s well worth the struggle.

Keep doing what you’re doing Patricia, hang onto the knowledge that you will have improved the lives of many, many birds with what you are doing.

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