I occasionally come on photos and videos of people with “pet” owls or owl cafes.
Owls are beautiful and soft, but they aren’t meant to be around us being cuddled or whatever. What is cuddling to us causes anxiety to them. It isn’t owl behavior. They tolerate it sort of if they are imprinted, but it makes them more underdeveloped and under equipped to be themselves than it does to make them good company.
Handling birds of prey, a person will get nipped or cut, but these hands are seriously grabbed up and cut, yet in the video clip they still have the owl restrained and continue “playing” with it.
If this hand is any sign of how happy the owls are here, I feel bad for them. If they don’t like their handler touching them, I can only imagine how upset they are being touched by strangers all day.
Dogs, cats, and farm type animals have been domesticated and are used to humans to a decent extent. Most animals though will never be domesticated. They want and need to be free.
It feels like the flying is almost universally our favorite thing about birds, so I don’t understand taking that away from them.
Many also seem to have a number of social requirements to be around others of their own kind as well.
It just seems very tricky to find a way to keep birds in a way that isn’t mentally harmful to them. And with some of these birds having the ability to readily outlive their original purchaser, that’s a long life to potentially be miserable, and a big responsibility for someone that gets to inherit it if you didn’t ask for it.
My friend’s parents had a cockatoo, and as they’re both no longer able to take care of themselves, my friend rehomed it to someone who could take better care of it. I feel they had it for about 20 years, and it always seemed angry and was always half bald from plucking itself. I always felt bad when I saw that thing.
yeah ours is that exact situation. it was my father in laws and he could no longer take care of it. It does not pluck itself but he is a curmudgeon that complains often till he gets what he wants. He is like 40 and we sometimes wonder if he will outlive us.
You should make sure there’s a plan for him in your will.