People Eat Parrots??

I read this from a yahoo article about the parrot trade and how hunters not only gather them for pets but for people to eat.

In all honesty I guess I shouldn't be surprise, people eat anything! For some reason I am surprised by this. I know people hunted parrots for more than just pets (Feathers for hats and so on). I guess I never thought about eating one. :31: I guess it would taste like chicken. What else could it taste like?

Have anyone else heard about eating parrots before or am I just late to the party?:54:

Article:
Hunting for baby parrots in India

Oh wow, i hadn't read about it, but it doesn't surprise me after watching documentaries showing what some people eat

It doesn't seem like there would be much meat on them! They would just be like a boney chicken!!

Of course everyone in my family jokes that Fargo would make a nice roast

Sorry to say, there are still native peoples who kill & eat parrots...though most countries discourage it and even where it might be against the law, it may be the difference between dinner on the table or going to bed hungry...hungry/poor people usually look to their existence rather than what someone in a foreign country might think an immoral/cruel act.....what is immoral are the salaries and perks enjoyed by the Wayne Pacelles of the world.....

More and more indigenous people are being taught the value of not eating "bush meat". They are learning that keeping the wildlife alive is helping bring in money as people pay to visit their tribe and to be lead into the bush to see the animals in there real habitat. What we need to remember is before others came into their areas these animals were not endangered and where the only source of meat.

There's always that aussie recipe joke: "put galah in pot of boiling water with some rocks, when the rocks go soft galah is ready to eat ".

I'm not surprised haha When I told people I was getting a bird, they ALWAYS say, "Hmm, I'll take it deep-fried." Kind if makes me annoyed but what can ya do? I mean, I'm in America, so they wouldn't really eat my baby, but they always make the joke....

I am not surprised to hear about this at all. I would think natives would eat whatever is plentiful in the area just like people eating pigeons and doves.

I think every bird owner at one time or another has jokingly had their bird threatened to being eaten. Mine has by friends every time he decides to start flock calling. Personally, I do not think they are worth the hard work to get that little bit of meat. lol.

Well they sure do smell good, sweet and nutty and delicious!

It is amazing what people will eat, dogs, cats, horses, parrots, aligators, oppossum, raccoons, snakes, you name it. Most of it I like!

To be clear, it is mostly "over-civilized" cultures who determine that eating other animal life is uncivilized, so hearing that people eat parrots is as unalarming as hearing that people hunt and eat rabbits, turkeys, ducks , deer and doves (now we're getting closer to the parrots!). The reason we don't eat parrots around here is because there are too many other things more common to hunt ... then there are those pesky grocery stores!

I would guess, that there isn't a large market for eating $1,500 parrots, but if you and your family live in the bush and the parrots are plentiful and the local wild pigs can kill you, the local politicians might run a campaign promising a "parrot in every pot". (A chicken in every pot was once used as a campaign slogan promising to fight hunger.)

I have made reference here to Skittles (my resident BFA) as my Tropical Chicken, I've even told him that if he bit me again I was going beer-batter him and fry him. But, If I was THAT hungry, I would do better eating the neighbor's Larador Retriever!

Me ... eat PARROTS ... NAH ... I'd rather eat CARROTS!

Forbey

Doesn't surprise me. Eating horse is taboo here in the US, mainly due to our romantasized visions and the fact that the country's frontier was pushed open on their backs. However, it is common practice to eat equines in other countries. Monkeys, camel, cow, goats, dog, it just depends where you are from and what is rated as taboo or common practice in. That culture.

Zazoothehahns said:

Doesn't surprise me. Eating horse is taboo here in the US, mainly due to our romantasized visions and the fact that the country's frontier was pushed open on their backs. However, it is common practice to eat equines in other countries. Monkeys, camel, cow, goats, dog, it just depends where you are from and what is rated as taboo or common practice in. That culture.

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It might be taboo to eat horse meat in the US, but that didn't stop the US from using horse meat in dog food and glue.

And just because parrots are birds, doesn't mean they would taste like chicken. I have eaten quite a few different birds and most don't taste like chicken, although frog legs and Iguana does.

Have to say, i never thought i would become one of those 'annoying vegetarians' (and i normally don't say anything to anyone, so i supposed i'm not so 'annoying') but after years as a vegetarian, it is far out to even think about eating the 'normal' animals consumed in the US. After enough time, i've moved closer to vegan and don't miss it.
Granted if i were starving to death and there were no crops for some reason, i suppose it would be a different story...........i really can't say, being "lucky" that i have never known that level of hunger and poverty in my lifetime. I just can't imagine.

sorry, I am not going to read that article....ugggggg, gives me the creeps!!

poor babies

mtdoramike said:

Zazoothehahns said:

Doesn't surprise me. Eating horse is taboo here in the US, mainly due to our romantasized visions and the fact that the country's frontier was pushed open on their backs. However, it is common practice to eat equines in other countries. Monkeys, camel, cow, goats, dog, it just depends where you are from and what is rated as taboo or common practice in. That culture.

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It might be taboo to eat horse meat in the US, but that didn't stop the US from using horse meat in dog food and glue.

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Oh I know, my brother, years and years ago, while trying to work summer jobs to offset college tuition, worked for Alpo. Not his ideal choice but it paid well and he was in desperate need of tuition money. The only difference now is the horses are auctioned, sent to Canada or Mexico to be slaughtered, then trucked back to the US todog food companies since equine slaughter is not permitted in the US. There was talk about reopening a plant in the south but I never herd any more mention of it.

Here is the sad thing about the stopping of horse slaughter in the US. We have so many unwanted horses that people are just turning them lose. One guy here in my county went out and just shot all 10 horses in his herd when he could not feed them and could not even give them away. There are no pounds that will take them in and rescues are full to the brim with great horses that no one can carefull. As much as I love animals I would rather see them used in some way then left to starve or just shot and left to rot.

In their native habitats yes. However, they did a interview in Mexico about parrots where one guy said the practice of eating parrots is dying off since some people get sic for awhile after eating one (maybe because parrots eat stuff that could be toxic to us in the wild). In China and other Asian countries they eat a variety of animals even endangered animals. Some countries eat horse meat. I had a couple people joke about eating my bird.

ShellyBorg said:

Here is the sad thing about the stopping of horse slaughter in the US. We have so many unwanted horses that people are just turning them lose. One guy here in my county went out and just shot all 10 horses in his herd when he could not feed them and could not even give them away. There are no pounds that will take them in and rescues are full to the brim with great horses that no one can carefull. As much as I love animals I would rather see them used in some way then left to starve or just shot and left to rot.

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I agree put them in the market or feed them to big cats or use them for dog food or cat food etc.

ShellyBorg said:

Here is the sad thing about the stopping of horse slaughter in the US. We have so many unwanted horses that people are just turning them lose. One guy here in my county went out and just shot all 10 horses in his herd when he could not feed them and could not even give them away. There are no pounds that will take them in and rescues are full to the brim with great horses that no one can carefull. As much as I love animals I would rather see them used in some way then left to starve or just shot and left to rot.

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Instead of allowing owners of horses to sell them to slaughter houses and unable to sell them to anyone else, owners of aging horses are forced to find alternative ways to dispose of them simply because they cannot afford to take them to the vet to have them euthanized. Due to contamination problems, you can't just dig a giant hole and bury them because of the potential of contaminating water resources.

(Sorry, way off topic, but a serious problem in the US.)

Forbey

I've never eaten one but people who have say they don't really taste very good, they are tough and stringy and have a fatty kind of meat. Songbirds, on the other hand, are a meager fare but they taste pretty good.