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.
I find so much endless great stuff between the wild owls, the great with done by rehabs, and licensed education animals that I can just bypass stuff that is questionable to me.
I was a little concerned about the Bob Ross post today, but after I read up on it and watched the video clip, I learned he was good friends with a licensed rehabber, and she was caring for the owl. I subtly dropped that in my comment there and that was good for me.
I like the person that posted it and I think they post a lot of nice animal pics, and I think Bob Ross was great, but I also don’t want people that just see a fun photo to just think taking care of an owl or squirrel is like a cat or a dog or like most of the videos you will see.
Following all the rehabs and the stories they share really shows the best and the worst of humanity and its relations with animals. I’m not out to dampen anyone’s fun, but I want the fun with animals to be mutual. ☺️