January 26, 2008
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Issues on Parrot Ownership
[This post is a work in progress.]
People who have talked to me recently might have noticed how much I detest righteous indignation no matter the source. Righteous indignation does not help problems or solve them, but its primary purpose is to make the source of its wrath satisfied at how much ‘better’ they are than others. Those who know me also know that doing the right thing and striving to be a good person is at the very core of who I am.
I’d like to speak out briefly about three outlets of righteous indignation as relates to parrot ownership – or rather those who oppose parrot ownership. At the risk of sounding righteously indignant myself, people who maintain these three positions assert them in a smug superiority that they are ‘arguing for the welfare and rights of animals’, that they are ‘leading the charge’ for the animal equality, and other equally vague umbrella causes. Unfortunately for the animals, most people who lead these charges can or will not (unwilling by choice, intellectual inability, laziness) distinguish the implications and details of different cases and situations and conflate all cases of keeping animals with those that are clearly cruel and unethical. Extremists exist in all societies and disputes, but even simple close-mindedness can – in this situation – lead to the suffering and even harm of the very animals people claim to be protecting.
(1) The first of the positions, specifically, is the proposal of bans on parrot ownership that either include or leave open the possibility of the confiscation and destruction of currently-owned parrots.
(2) The second position is the charge that all parrot owners support or buy from smuggled, wild-caught, imported parrots.
(3) The third position is the proposal of categorical bans on private or public keeping of animals.I will not speak to any other issues than the specific ones above; my intention is merely to argue specifically against each of these positions and not any other positions on animal ownership or welfare. I will argue that the first is utterly contrary to the principle of humane treatment of sentient beings (upon which the presupposition that animals are sentient the entire animal rights movement is based), that – especially for parrots shown to have intelligence comparable with young children – the forced confiscation and destruction of said animals can be tantamount to the state-sponsored incarceration of young children from their parents and is comparable with murder of young children. My argument against the second position is that its assertion is false, and that the majority of good parrot owners – at least in North America – are fundamentally opposed to the inhumane treatment of parrots involved in smuggling. I may or may not argue the further position that the treatment of parrots involved in smuggling is tantamount to what supporters of the confiscation/destruction of parrots propose. My argument against the third position will proceed that categorical bans of this type most importantly rule out programs that are beneficial to the welfare of animals, such as breeding and conservation programs aimed at bolstering populations of endangered species, programs aimed at education that keep animals under humane conditions with the animals’ interests in mind, and knowledgeable private owners (of some species – few people, for example, have proper resources to safely and humanely keep cougars or lions, or cetaceans for whom their extreme intelligence further obviates against their private captivity) who meet the animals’ needs to extent enough to maintain their satisfaction and happiness. Furthermore, such categorical bans are often proposed in sweeping groupings of varying extents that ignore the differential needs of specific species; these include categorical bans against the keeping of all animals (including domesticated ones), categorical bans against all ‘exotic’ animals, or specific species. These bans also typically assert some vague moral principle as justification, regardless of the variability of specific cases, causes, and situations in order to ignore the alternate proposal of the varying extents possible with regulation or oversight.
… to be continued.
