You'd think I'd feel differently having seven parrots, but you may be surprised to find I agree with you. To an extent anyway. I struggle with it.

Don't bring a parrot into captivity from the wild. Separating them from the life they already know is cruel -- save for medical exceptions, after which you release them back.

But it's already been done, and we have domesticated parrots. They are raised by humans, hand-fed by humans, and they bond with humans. They have slim odds of reintegrating back into the wild, where they fend for their lives against other territorial birds. One swoop from a hawk and they're gone.

Gone, your buddies that are an integral part of your every day. They climb on your shoulder and attach themselves to you like velcro. They mimic your laugh and preen your hair. You trim their nails, you give them all kinds of delicious fruits and veggies every day. They throw fruit back at you that they don't want, like little children throwing a tantrum. They have a giant daytime aviary that takes up quite literally half your home, and their own night time cages to sleep and rest in.

All they know is you and the human touch. They integrated with you and you're their only flock now. The bond of a parrot is extreme and lifelong.

Imagine the devestation when their only flock abandons them. A prior owner of one of my birds left their cage outside an exotic's facility, like a child in a basket outside the fire station.

For another, she came from a flock of two. Her prior owner murdered the other -- the remaining one is laying an egg now.

For two others, their owner's parrots themselves had fertile eggs. She couldn't bring herself to boil, freeze, or smash the eggs as you're supposed to do with eggs you do not want to hatch.

For two others, their prior owner of 25 years passed away. And for one other, she simply needed a new home.

They all have a home here now where they will peacefully enjoy the rest of their lives with me. I hope to never let them go hungry, alone, abused -- so I have to outlive them and make sure I am their last owner.

But as we wish more for our children, I wish more for them. I wish they could fly to the end of a lake and back and know how it feels to feel the breeze under their wings. I wish they could be adopted by a flock of their own kind. That they could endure the harshness of the wild -- and perhaps even come home after a long, fruitful, eventful day outside.

... But who knows if they even want that. :)

"You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed" - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince