- It’s one of those unlikely natural outcomes of the so-called anthropocene, the first epoch to be named after us: the prolonged confinement of intelligent and social creatures, compelling them to speak the language of their keepers. And now, in yet another unlikely occurrence, parrots, among the oldest victims of human acquisitiveness and vainglory, have become some of the most empathic readers of our troubled minds. Their deep need to connect is drawing the most severely wounded and isolated PTSD sufferers out of themselves. In an extraordinary example of symbiosis, two entirely different outcasts of human aggression — war and entrapment — are somehow helping each other to find their way again.
I work a weekly shift at the Minnesota parrot rescue mentioned in the article (Midwest Avian Adoption and Rescue Services)! This is such a lovely article, thanks for sharing! ^ This is a great way to succinctly sum up the plight of domestic parrots. They absolutely don't belong in captivity, but they're taken out of the wild at astounding rates in certain countries, and sold at high prices. It's illegal in many countries to import birds, but they're still smuggled in. The people who buy them generally have no clue what it's like living with a parrot (hint: they're generally extremely loud and demanding), and usually end up giving them up pretty quickly. Parrots often try to form a mated bond with the owner (usually unbeknownst to the owner), which leads to a lot of frustration for the bird. Often this means that the bird will be hostile towards any other people living in the house than the person it sees as its mate. And then when they're abandoned, it feels like it's been deserted by its mate. If anybody's interested in learning more about parrots in captivity, there's a really great hour-long PBS documentary that you can watch for free on the PBS website if you're in the US.Abandoned pet parrots are twice-traumatized beings: denied first their natural will to flock and then the company of the humans who owned them.
What I know about parrots couldn't fill one side of notebook paper double spaced, but this article is fascinating to me nonetheless. I hope that one day we'll have a much better handle on how animals think and feel, and people doing work like this (such as yourself) I think are the pioneers of that field. I challenge anyone to get through this entire article without welling up. I'm going to watch that doc when I have time. Thanks for the link!
I thought this was very interesting. I've talked about my little brother's animal behavior training program he's in and I sent this to him (no idea if he will have time to read it because they work them like dogs). When I visited, the parrots had a ridiculously high number of behaviors that they could recreate. They're incredibly intelligent. This is an interesting way to work on both human and animal traumas.