• Home
• Cruelty
• Animals on Farms
• Experimentation
• Wildlife
• Sport and Entertainment
• Nutrition
• Recipes
• Animal Law
• Eating Wildlife
• Meat and the Environment
• Cruelty Free Products
• Vegetarian Restaurants

• Things to do
• School activities
• About us
• Contacts us
• Membership
• Mail us
• Links
• Credits

Web

animalliberation.org.au

• Battery Hens
• Pigs
• Dairy
• Chickens
• Live Sheep Export
• Adelaide Free Range Egg Outlets
• Compassionate Recipes
• Companion Animals
• About Animal Liberation
• Product Testing on Animals
• Can greenies eat meat?
• Cattle methane
• Milking the Murray
• The real cost of chicken
• CSIRO's Cancer Diet
• Eating Water
• Eating Plants

• Greenhouse Gases
• Water Usage Quiz
• Bush Tucker
• Climate Change

• New South Wales
• Queensland
• Victoria
• Tasmania
• Animals Australia

Native birds

Caging native birds

Unfortunately, caged birds are still popular as pets. There are an estimated 1.3 million birds in captivity in Victoria alone. Some of these are native and some, like the canary, are exotic. One in seven households is estimated to have one or more "pet" birds (1).

Some species, such as the budgerigar, are bred in captivity. Others, such as sulphur crested cockatoos and galahs, are difficult to breed and are captured at a young age from the wild. In South Australia, it is legal to trap little corellas and galahs, and to take juveniles from nest hollows. However, the government admits: (2)
" it is likely that a considerable proportion of birds taken in this manner die before reaching maturity. "

Regardless of whether they are wild-caught or captive-bred, a cage is not a fit home for a bird. However, capture from the wild produces even higher levels of stress.

Why cages are cruel:

• All birds have evolved to fly, often over considerable distances. In captivity they can, at best, flutter from one perch to the next. In small cages they can't even do that.

• The native species kept as pets are highly gregarious. In the wild, birds such as budgies, cockatoos, galahs, corellas, cockatiels, zebra and Gouldian finches are often found in large flocks, never alone. Yet in a cage they are often kept in solitary confinement.

• Birds in the wild spend much of their time foraging for food. In a cage they have nothing to do. The parrot species have strong beaks for cracking hard materials, but in a cage there is nothing suitable to gnaw or crack.

Caged birds can develop abnormal behaviour as a result of frustration and boredom. For example, cockatoos and galahs can pull out their own feathers. They may also rock from side to side, bob up and down, screech frequently and become aggressive (3,4).

Exporting birds

Since 1960 the export of native birds for the pet trade has been banned. However, because so-called bird lovers overseas are willing to pay such high prices for a colourful Australian bird, there is a thriving illegal industry. For example, a pair of black cockatoos could fetch $30,000 in the USA (2).

Smugglers drug the birds so they won't struggle or screech. They are then stuffed into wire netting or plastic tubes and packed into bags. The whole process is very stressful and many die during capture and transport (5).

Death rates are high even in the legal trade. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) examined the death rate of birds imported into Britain in 1989, with results printed on a double page spread in The Times in May 1991. For 75 different species mortality ranged from 15% to 100% in transit and in quarantine. In other words, in some species all the birds died before they even left quarantine. The EPA calculated that for every wild bird sold in a pet shop, a further 3 had died before they got there (6).

Farmers in particular continually lobby to have the export ban on native birds lifted. Currently they kill birds such as galahs and corellas as pests, either by shooting, netting and gassing, or illegal poisoning. They argue that it would be more sensible to make money out of these birds by selling them overseas, and at the same time also undercutting the illegal trade.

This argument is wrong for several reasons:

• The number of birds that could be sold overseas would have a negligible effect on bird populations and crop damage around Australia.

• Legal export is still cruel, as shown by the EPA survey.

• Legal export would make it more difficult to prove illegal export. Currently this problem doesn't exist because all exports are illegal.

• Birds would be sent to countries where Australia has no control over the conditions in which birds are kept. All cages are cruel, but conditions overseas could be even worse than they are here.

The export ban must stay. In addition, trapping of wild birds for the domestic pet trade must stop. People should learn to enjoy wild birds in their parks and gardens rather than subjecting captive birds to cramped and boring solitary confinement.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has set up 2 rehabilitation centres in Australia for returning caged native birds to the wild. After a veterinary examination and 6 weeks in quarantine, the birds are transferred to a large flight aviary with others of their species. There they learn to fly again, to socialise and to eat native foods. When they are sufficiently wild, 6 months to 3 years later, they are released in groups of 10 well away from humans (7).

References