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 inherited a cockatoo and honestly I don’t feel birds should be pets in general. Even if they allowed to roam free out of the cage a house is so small compared to the area they are meant to be in. The equivalent to us walking around the house to them is flitting around the block, us going around the block is them like going a mile down. There is a reason we have things about a caged bird. I would never get one intentionally.
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.
Same goes for chickens and other livestock in miserable and small enclosures.
yeah I had a friend who appeared vegan but she had some wild caught meat and I found out she just would not eat meat kept for that purpose.
Yeah it’s sad for all animals.
Mussel farming seems like an ethical and eco friendly way to farm the most protein per area.
It can generate a ton of food, clean the water, and without a central nervous system, most would possibly agree, no misery.
Why are you talking about this? There’s still misery because mussels are alive. Look into plant based proteins and no more animals need to be used for your enjoyment.
Are plants not?
They’re very different. But I don’t know why me saying that other animals live in awful cages too suddenly got some anti-vegan sentiment going on. Why the hell did the mussels argument even get posted?
Like what the fuck.
I completely agree. I feel the same way about reptiles.