Ah, the root of the problem. Humans believe we are so entitled to do what we want, especially if it’s “our property.” I paid for that bird, it’s mine, I’ll do what I want and who cares what other people say. I paid for the land that 1000 year old tree lives on, and I have the right to cut it down if I want. I paid for my fishing license so I have the right to catch an endangered sailfish. I paid for this refinery on the bayou so I have the right to dump waste in the water. I paid for a mining lease so I have the right to dig in a national wilderness. I paid for this oil so I have the right to build a pipeline anywhere I want even if it pollutes your drinking water. Over and over and over again this is the chant of our species. We own this, it belongs to us, we have the god-given right to do what we want to it. I hate being human sometimes.
Yes, a person has the absolute legal right to starve or kill an unweaned baby out of ignorance or miserliness. Yes, a person has the absolute legal right to keep a huge winged creature in such a small cage that it can’t even stretch its wings fully out. Yes, a person has the right to chain up a bird, a dog, any animal they want. Because the animals don’t love us and they have their own natures and their own free will, and if we didn’t chain or cage them they would get away as soon as they could. And we paid good money for that macaw, or that tree, or that mining lease. Don’t tell ME what to do, I’m free, white and 21.
And this saddens me deeply. We don’t acknowledge our kinship with the rest of creation. We don’t even recognize it. Dr. Pepperberg’s work with Alex shook the scientific community because it challenged the basis of our human vanity: the belief that humans are different ... that ponly humans are aware, able to think and reason, to come up with new ideas. Alex discovered for himself the concept of zero, something that took humans millenia to do. He proved that the absolute barriers we use to set ourselves apart from other animals and were nothing but illusions, words, matters of degree.
It discourages me to read that we will open a wildlife refuge for oil drilling. It disheartens me to read that we will allow endangered migratory birds to be killed if it saves money. It disappoints me that we don’t intervene with abuse and exploitation because property is protected. A human’s ownership of something matters more in court than the thing or being that is owned. I say we are not owners, not masters. We are a part of the world. We are brothers and sisters, not gods. There is a defect in the human genetic code that releases a reward chemical, dopamine, when we get a prize, eat something tasty, find a mate, gather possessions. We are driven by emotions and hormones, not by logic and compassion. That is our nature. But we don’t have to be enslaved by our nature. We can use our will to step back, reconsider, put ourselves in another being’s place. We can refrain from taking what is in our power to take, from destroying what it’s our legal right to destroy, and from enslaving a free being because it’s nit human. We can do better.
I believe everyone on this forum is here because they want to do better, because they want to be better, because they respect the feathered lives under their roofs and want to do right by them. The parrot in our cage - and let’s don’t sanitize the truth, it is a cage - isn’t our property, he’s our brother. He has a mind, an awareness, and a will of his own. It’s not in our power to undo the wrongs done to him and to his ancestors, to give him freedom, to give him an authentic macaw life. It’s only in our power to do right by him as much as we can. Quibbling about chains vs cages assumes that we have the right to do either. We don’t. At the same time, that macaw would not survive if we opened the door and threw him into the air. So we have the moral obligation to restrain him as kindly, as compassionately and as gently as we need to for his own safety. Maybe spend more money on good food for him, even if it means we go without something we desire. Maybe see through him his wild brothers and sisters being trapped, being killed, their homes destroyed to grow hamburgers for us, their babies stolen to be playthings for us, and maybe choose to help those invisible birds just a little. Maybe we will write a check to the World Parrot Trust or write a letter to the editor or write a helpful post on the Parrot Forum site. Maybe. Maybe. We can’t change the parrot world, and we can’t change human nature or society. We can only choose to be kind and loving to those around us, human or avian, and be as honorable as we can in our conduct toward these our brothers and sisters. To everyone here, thank you. Thank you for doing good. Thank you for caring. Thank you for being a light in the savage darkness. Thank you for being good guardians of the beings in your care. Thank you for coming here, out of all the internet, to connect with those who need to hear your words, and for supporting your fellow parronts in times of joy and sorrow. I hope you find the same love and light reflected back to you during your brief time on earth.
. The other side of my family is completely Western, grown up in the countryside with all sorts of critters - domesticated and wild; I was raised in that same environment and belief system. 
) In some ways, that makes me sad, in others, I'm grateful. (I don't like fish... or pigs blood...)
