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On Behalf of Free-Flyers

Discuss topics associated with teaching birds to fly. Training parrots recall flight, target flying, and other flying exercises.

On Behalf of Free-Flyers

Postby PhelanVelvel » Tue Jan 05, 2021 3:25 pm

I see there is a forum member here who is seemingly obsessed with denouncing free flight. Indeed, it seems almost to bring them joy when they learn of a free-flying parrot who is lost. As a free-flyer, I thought I would exercise my freedom of speech and offer a different perspective.

First of all, no one ever said free flight was risk-free. If you do see someone say this, they are either naïve, ignorant, or lying. Just like any other activity, it can be done with a greater or lesser degree of risk. This depends upon too many variables to explain in one post. However, risk cannot be eliminated entirely. The idea is that the bird is being afforded a higher quality of life and additional freedom in exchange for slightly more risk. Most birds, especially the larger birds like macaws, CANNOT achieve the same level of flight in captivity, no matter how big the aviary, as they can during outdoor free flight.

At the same time, to focus on each free flight mishap as proof that free flight should not be done makes as much sense as venomously condemning the practice of driving motor vehicles every time an innocent person dies in an accident. Keep in mind, also, that free flight is a relatively new practice. There are certain things we have learnt about it, through experience, that inform us and allow us to make the practice safer. There are still things we are trying to learn, such as the best way to fly certain species. This is a burgeoning activity that seeks to enrich the lives of parrot companions while educating the public on their care. Yes, it can be done foolishly, but there are fools everywhere--not just among free-flyers.

When such an activity is in its infancy, it is reasonable to expect failures. Because it is not yet widespread, there is a scarcity of experienced mentors to assist people in person. Because wing-clipping is still the norm, the bird world is saturated with people who either reject flight entirely or who elect to free-fly previously clipped birds. Imagine how much more we would know about free flight and how much safer it could be (through flying birds of ideal developmental backgrounds, practising group flying, and participating in a supportive and knowledgeable local free flight community) if the intention to free-fly upon acquiring a bird were the norm instead.

Finally, one's opinion on free flight must surely be derived, at least in part, from one's attitude towards freedom in general. A free-flyer accepts that risk is inherent in the activity, but a free-flyer also accepts that these birds are being provided a unique opportunity: to both fly freely and live in comfort. In captivity, a bird's freedom is significantly infringed. In the wild, a bird's comfort is significantly diminished. Free flight hopes to strike a balance, offering birds the best of both worlds and ideally avoiding the worst of each. If you are the kind of person willing to trade all of your liberty for complete safety, well...you know how the saying goes.

In your unyielding and acrid criticism of free flight as a whole, and your shaming of those who pursue it, you serve only to discourage people from sharing their mistakes, the very thing which allows us to make it safer. Through my experiences with my cockatiels, I have gained information which I share publicly and pass on to others. This has allowed them to pursue free flight more responsibly than they would have been able to otherwise, without needing to repeat any of the blunders made by me.

Free flight is by no means worth the risk for every bird. But I and other free-flyers would appreciate it if you could deign to see it through our eyes for just a moment. If you could see it through our eyes, your own would fill with tears--not out of misery, but awe--for that is precisely what I feel bursting from my heart as I watch my bird in flight. His silhouette passes before the sun, and nothing holds him back but the wind and sky. In that moment, there is only freedom.
PhelanVelvel
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 5
Number of Birds Owned: 40
Types of Birds Owned: Budgies, cockatiels, green-cheeked conures, galahs, a lesser sulphur-crested cockatoo, ring-necked doves, and...well, there's no partridge in a pear tree yet.
Flight: Yes

Re: On Behalf of Free-Flyers

Postby Pajarita » Wed Jan 06, 2021 11:10 am

First of all, it's not only 'a' member of this forum who condemns free flight (namely, me :lol: ). Michael, the owner of this site, a professional trainer with a background in animal behavior, and somebody who trained his birds for free flight and did it for years is now opposed to it - why? Because he realized that it's not safe and he would not risk his birds for it.

Secondly, your arguments are not valid. For one thing, it's not that the practice is in its infancy, it's that no matter how long you've been doing it and how much you might have learned about it, it will never be safe. If it was, professional trainers that have been doing this for many years (there have been free-flight shows in amusement parks and zoos for years and years) would not lose their birds - and they do. Furthermore, even homing pigeons which did not only evolve to return to their home (a genetic trait that parrots don't have) and which have been trained and bred for it for thousands of years (the Egyptians did it 1,000 BC) get lost in races - and not one or two but THOUSANDS of them (last race in Portugal, out of 14,000 pigeons, 8,000 never returned - almost 60%!!!!) so, obviously, it's not a matter of the practice being in its infancy, a matter of learning from mistakes or even a matter of more or less training because, if it was, there would be no lost professionally trained birds or, at least, a very small percentage. Also, the comparison between driving a car and having an accident and free-flying a bird and losing one is apples and oranges. A human being can make the decision to drive or not to drive, how, where and when so it is, up to a point, in conscious control of the outcome - birds are not. A sexually mature bird that has no mate will go looking for a mate and that means flying away. Period. It's not my opinion, it's a genetically programmed need (survival of the species) and nobody can train a bird to suppress it. But even a bird with a bonded mate who got left behind can get spooked and fly far away enough so as to get lost. Only problem is, when they get lost, most of them either end up in somebody else's home or dead.

And it has nothing to do with clipping or not agreeing with freedom. If you take the time to read other postings you will see that this is an anti-clipping site and that we are passionately pro-flight. As to freedom... Is a mother who does not allow its child to wander around without supervision against freedom? Is a dog owner who always uses a leash to walk its dog against freedom? Is the government who restricts access to a dangerous cliff against freedom? Of course not! They are FOR protection - not AGAINST freedom.

A house is plenty big for birds to fly in... granted that macaws need 30 ft of space and that most homes do not have rooms large enough but that's when true animal love comes in - because, if you do not have the infrastructure to house a certain animal species, you do not keep that species. If somebody living in an apartment wanted to keep a horse in it and claimed it was out of love for horses, you would laugh in his face, wouldn't you? Well, it's the same thing. If you love birds, you would never have a bird for which you cannot provide well. I do not take in macaws because I only have 27 ft and change from one end of the dining room to the end of the living room.

And, I am sorry, I sympathize and completely agree with the sentiment of 'seeing things from a different perspective' -I am all for that!- but no bird lover is ever going to see this subject through any other eyes but those of their love for birds because that is what it all goes down to. True bird lovers want to keep them healthy, happy AND safe, and although free flying is good for them from both a physical and an emotional point of view, it does not keep them safe (and you admitted to this yourself). Besides, as much as you enjoy seeing your birds fly (and I am not questioning this) and although I am sure that every single person who free-flies birds enjoys the activity, most of them do it for the show-off factor and not for the bird's wellbeing. Having said that, I am also sure that there are lots of people out there doing it because they simply do not realize that when it comes to losing a bird in free-flight is not a matter of 'if', it's a matter of 'when'.

But the biggest argument against free-flying is why take the risk when there is no need for it?! All arguments for or against go down to this simple truism - because there is no need on this green earth for any bird to be put in danger just so it can free-fly when there is a perfectly good and perfectly safe alternative: use a leash outdoors and/or fly them in an enclosed place. Same exercise, same experience for the birds but safe.
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 18701
Location: NW Pa
Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes

Re: On Behalf of Free-Flyers

Postby PhelanVelvel » Wed Jan 06, 2021 1:51 pm

Pajarita, I really think that you shaped your opinion based on very little information and then became somewhat fixated on confirming your bias.

Pajarita wrote:First of all, it's not only 'a' member of this forum who condemns free flight (namely, me :lol: ). Michael, the owner of this site, a professional trainer with a background in animal behavior, and somebody who trained his birds for free flight and did it for years is now opposed to it - why? Because he realized that it's not safe and he would not risk his birds for it.


Listen, I am not insulting Michael, but we have to be realistic about his free flight approach. From whom did he learn free flight? No one, right? He tried to teach himself? He tried to teach himself to free-fly birds who were adults (and I believe at least one was previously clipped) in a city park. This is NOT a professional approach to free flight, so please do not attempt to pass it off as such. It was not even a big city park (like Central Park) with at least some natural buffer, which would have been dodgy enough; it was an extremely small one that was directly surrounded by the cityscape. This is one of the worst locations you could possibly begin to free-fly. I wish Michael would realise this and stop vilifying free flight on the basis of his experiences.

It seems as though your entire perspective on free flight was catalysed by the actions of someone doing it very irresponsibly. Guess what? When I first started, I was irresponsible, too. I also tried to teach myself, thinking I knew enough about birds to tackle the challenge. Just like with Michael, it did not go well. This is like trying to teach yourself to ride a horse, climb a mountain, or scuba dive. This is why falconry requires an apprenticeship. You really cannot use Michael's experiences to justify anything other than not flying beginner birds in the middle of the city. After pursuing mentorship and learning from experienced free-flyers, I realised the pure stupidity of the things I had been doing before. We have to be able to admit when we were wrong.

Pajarita wrote:Secondly, your arguments are not valid. For one thing, it's not that the practice is in its infancy, it's that no matter how long you've been doing it and how much you might have learned about it, it will never be safe. If it was, professional trainers that have been doing this for many years (there have been free-flight shows in amusement parks and zoos for years and years) would not lose their birds - and they do.


Zoos and amusement parks are some of the worst examples of "free flight". Having a bird fly from point A to point B or do circles in a very small area does not even really build their outdoor flight skills, let alone navigation skills. It's complete child's play. My birds are better free-flyers after a year or two than those birds are after ten flying in that setting. I told you, free flight is in its infancy. Actual free flight with parrots where they are treated like athletes--not just silliness where the bird flies a bit in a zoo arena, having its weight kept artificially low so that it never really wanders, then gets stuffed back in a cage--is most certainly in its infancy.

Free flight will never be "safe"? Define "safe". Nothing is 100% safe, not even having a bird in your house. How many birds die every year from accidents in the house? By your logic, birds absolutely should be clipped, because then there is a much lower chance of them flying out the door. There are plenty of examples of clipped birds living long lives, so why risk them being able to fly? Why expose them to ANY danger, right?

"But you have to take precautions to prevent that." Is it EVER 100%? No? Then don't keep flighted birds. And yes, clipped birds can be stepped on or sat on. So just don't keep birds, period. Nothing is ever 100% safe. Free flight can be a lot safer than what you currently believe because you're basing WAY TOO MUCH off of Michael's experiences. You then purposefully seek out the accidents, tragedies, and failures that confirm your own bias. You have no idea what the proportion of birds who have been free-flying successfully for years is compared to the birds who have been lost.

Pajarita wrote:Furthermore, even homing pigeons which did not only evolve to return to their home (a genetic trait that parrots don't have) and which have been trained and bred for it for thousands of years (the Egyptians did it 1,000 BC) get lost in races - and not one or two but THOUSANDS of them (last race in Portugal, out of 14,000 pigeons, 8,000 never returned - almost 60%!!!!) so, obviously, it's not a matter of the practice being in its infancy, a matter of learning from mistakes or even a matter of more or less training because, if it was, there would be no lost professionally trained birds or, at least, a very small percentage.


Parrots are not released tens or hundreds of miles from their home and expected to find their way back. This comparison is not legitimate. Parrots are flown in a completely different manner. Particularly for parrots who fly repeatedly at the same familiar locations, their ability to navigate back to the original area if they fly off is actually very good. There is a very small percentage of professionally trained birds who get lost. If I had to take a guess right now at this very moment, I would say the number is probably 10 out of 100, and that's taking into account smaller birds, which are inherently riskier to free-fly for a number of reasons.

Neither you nor I have the exact data, but I actually study free flight very closely because I care about mitigating risk and preventing future accidents. I have a realistic idea of how many birds are lost, and it is a much smaller percentage than you currently imagine. I know people who have been flying the same birds for ten years. The trick is getting them to that point without making a stupid mistake, which is why they should be from an ideal developmental background and why you need an experienced mentor.

Pajarita wrote:Also, the comparison between driving a car and having an accident and free-flying a bird and losing one is apples and oranges. A human being can make the decision to drive or not to drive, how, where and when so it is, up to a point, in conscious control of the outcome - birds are not.


Once again, this is incorrect. My birds 100% have conscious control of the outcome. If they don't want to fly that day, guess what? They don't fly. Responsible free-flyers pay close attention to their birds' behaviour. Moreover, responsible free-flyers never hurl their birds into the air or otherwise force them to fly. Responsible free-flyers carefully select locations that will work the best with that species and that individual. Responsible free-flyers militantly check wind and weather conditions so as not to expose their bird to situations that are too difficult. Responsible free-flyers study locations for their wild bird activity before selecting them as potential flight locations. Responsible free-flyers typically fly more than one bird so that they have flock security and protection, just like they would in the wild. If the birds wish to fly, they fly. If they do not, no one makes them. That is the freedom of choice.

Pajarita wrote:A sexually mature bird that has no mate will go looking for a mate and that means flying away. Period. It's not my opinion, it's a genetically programmed need (survival of the species) and nobody can train a bird to suppress it. But even a bird with a bonded mate who got left behind can get spooked and fly far away enough so as to get lost. Only problem is, when they get lost, most of them either end up in somebody else's home or dead.


This is a gross oversimplification. Certain species are more prone to wandering for a mate than others (like the eclectus), I will give you that. But the truth of the matter is that pair and flock flying is the future of free flight because it is safer, and more and more free-flyers are beginning to realise and adopt this. This is just one more example of how we are learning and growing as practitioners of this activity.

I am not going to sit here and try and convince you that no free-flyers are ever permanently lost. I'm a realist, or I wouldn't be a responsible free-flyer. But your perception of free flight reminds me of someone who is adamant that having birds flighted in the home is just too much risk. The risk level when done properly is probably a 3, and you're acting like it's a 9 or a 10.

Pajarita wrote:Besides, as much as you enjoy seeing your birds fly (and I am not questioning this) and although I am sure that every single person who free-flies birds enjoys the activity, most of them do it for the show-off factor and not for the bird's wellbeing. Having said that, I am also sure that there are lots of people out there doing it because they simply do not realize that when it comes to losing a bird in free-flight is not a matter of 'if', it's a matter of 'when'.


I find the first part of this troubling. How many free-flyers have you actually taken the time to interact with? I believe that most of us are doing it because we love our birds. Losing a bird period is not a matter of "if", but "when". There is a fundamental disconnect between your thinking and our thinking. You just want the bird to be as safe as possible and live as long as possible. We want the bird to be as free as possible while minimising risk as well as we can. Life in the wild is not peaches and cream either, you know...

Pajarita wrote:But the biggest argument against free-flying is why take the risk when there is no need for it?! All arguments for or against go down to this simple truism - because there is no need on this green earth for any bird to be put in danger just so it can free-fly when there is a perfectly good and perfectly safe alternative: use a leash outdoors and/or fly them in an enclosed place. Same exercise, same experience for the birds but safe.


It is not the same experience at all. There is absolutely no tether in the world that will allow a bird to experience what they would during free flight. I am not saying that everyone with a bird should pursue free flight, because the vast majority of them honestly should not. But it is not the same experience. A small parrot such as a cockatiel can get decent exercise in a standard 20 x 10 x 8-foot high room. For a macaw to get that same amount of exercise, they would need a room that is roughly 60 x 30 x 26 feet high. How many macaw owners have houses that big?

And leads/tethers can be plenty dangerous, they really can. A bird on a tether can be taken by a predator. I know at least one person whose bird was killed by a dog when the dog ran up while it was attached to a tether. This is where someone like you comes in and remarks "You shouldn't have taken that risk! There was always a chance a dog could show up at the park!" Then there is yet another person who cries "This is why birds shouldn't be flighted! There is no reason to expose them to this danger when they can be perfectly happy clipped and given other opportunities for enrichment!" Each person strikes the balance between safety and freedom at a different point. You strike it without free flight while we strike it with.

I honestly think that if you pushed yourself to set aside your bias for the moment and examined macaw free flight specifically (join some groups, talk to some actual free-flyers, watch videos of their macaws flying day in and day out), your opinion would definitely change. One, you would see the level of enrichment that macaws derive specifically from outdoor free flight and would likely concede that it is generally worth the risk for them and that the risk is much lower than you had thought. I'm not asking you to agree with me on small birds because that is a point of contention even in the free flight community, but I am asking you to start with reexamining your opinion of free flight with regards to the larger birds.
PhelanVelvel
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 5
Number of Birds Owned: 40
Types of Birds Owned: Budgies, cockatiels, green-cheeked conures, galahs, a lesser sulphur-crested cockatoo, ring-necked doves, and...well, there's no partridge in a pear tree yet.
Flight: Yes

Re: On Behalf of Free-Flyers

Postby Pajarita » Thu Jan 07, 2021 11:52 am

Oh, my... you are grossly misinformed about Michael, his educational background, his techniques and his birds. He is a pretty well known figure in the parrot world and his 'story' is accessible to anybody who takes the time to find it so I would suggest that you double check your info before you use it as an argument in a debate.

As to the 'safety' argument... well, it doesn't work either, I am afraid. Of course nothing is 100% safe! But it is our responsibility as caregivers (and not only of parrots, I am talking children, dogs, cats, etc) to make their environment safe, to watch over them and to eliminate high risk from their lives, isn't it? Birds kept the right way in a home are VERY safe. I've kept hundreds of birds (literally! I do not have an actual figure because I never counted but I had an average of 240 birds in the rescue for 6 years so I calculate that the total of birds I've had under my care are over 400) and I have lost the grand total of one to a tragic accident. It was a quaker (her name was Paca and I used to refer to her as 'Paca la loca') that used to follow me around as I was doing the birdroom in the rescue and, as I had climbed on a step ladder to change the full spectrum light bulbs (as I did every 6 months), I lost my balance and fell on her. She died almost instantly, the poor little thing! And I still blame myself for it... Do lots of birds die in homes? Yes, they do. But 99.999% of them die from events that were entirely preventable even though people call them 'accidents'. It's people who fail to keep them safe, not that they cannot be kept safe.

You keep on talking about clipping versus free-flight as if it was a binary option - it's not an 'either/or' choice. You can keep a flighted bird without free-flying it. And 'life in the wild' comparisons are also not germane to the argument. But I do agree with you that normal homes do not have the room for a macaw - and that's EXACTLY why most people who keep them should not.

And it is not that I am biased against it or that I am basing my opinion on the failed experiences of a single individual (I do two hours of daily research on all parrot subjects) - bias is prejudice and prejudice is an opinion not based on information or knowledge. What you are basically adducing is that if I have never free-flown a bird or interacted with a bird that free-flies, my opinion is not based on information or knowledge. But I also never allowed any of my children and grandchildren to ride their bikes on the street and I don't need to do it to know that this is not safe. I don't need to personally know somebody who jumped off Niagara Falls in a barrel to know that it's dangerous. Anybody can evaluate risk without actually participating in the actual action. We all do it all the time.

Last but not least, there is something I need to say. There is a word that, in my personal opinion, people use to justify practices that are not quite justifiable -kind of like an adjective that they hope obviates the actual results of the practice in question- this word is 'responsible'. As in 'responsible parrot breeders' and your 'responsible free-fliers'... I have to tell you that I am very careful of the English language. It is not my first or even my second language, it's a language I learned through study and most of it as an adult so I always try to be very precise on the words I use. I make it a point to choose the words so their meaning is exactly what I want to say and what it should be (mind you, not that I don't make mistakes all the time, this is not what I am saying) and 'responsible' cannot possibly apply in either usage. There are no 'responsible breeders' in the pet parrot trade - same as there are no 'responsible free-fliers'. The former is self-evident (overpopulation, rescues full of birds, birds that pluck, self-mutilate, die young, etc etc) and the latter... well, I only have to go back to your own statement where you admit that you believe that 10% of parrots get lost in free-flight. How can you possibly believe that losing 10% of the birds on something that is not necessary for the bird's wellbeing falls under a 'responsible' practice'?! Sheesh! There is something very seriously wrong with that!
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 18701
Location: NW Pa
Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes

Re: On Behalf of Free-Flyers

Postby PhelanVelvel » Thu Jan 07, 2021 1:19 pm

Pajarita wrote:Oh, my... you are grossly misinformed about Michael, his educational background, his techniques and his birds. He is a pretty well known figure in the parrot world and his 'story' is accessible to anybody who takes the time to find it so I would suggest that you double check your info before you use it as an argument in a debate.


Who was his free flight mentor? Did he or did he not free-fly his beginner small birds in a city park? Are you going to try and tell me that because he learned how to train his pet parrots indoors on his own, that automatically qualified him to train them outdoors on his own? This is exactly the kind of thing I was saying makes free flight unnecessarily dangerous. He needs to be honest and critical of himself and admit that the error lay with himself and his choices rather than with free flight as a whole.

Your opinion of him is not in the least bit objective, so there really is no point continuing this conversation. Most experienced free-flyers won't even free-fly their experienced birds at a city location the way he did, let alone a beginner bird, adult bird, and small bird all combined. Objectively, it was a terrible place to free-fly. The street and houses are literally right next to them at one point with only a fence (that the bird could obviously fly over) separating the park from the street. I would not fly my cockatiels or conures there EVER, let alone while they're beginners.

Fun fact: birds get lost incredibly easily in the middle of the city. They don't get lost very easily at all when you train them at a simpler, more naturalistic location that is both objectively easier to interpret but also easier for the way their brains are wired. How do I know? Countless frights or "spooks" experienced by my six small birds. City locations are highly inappropriate for many species. This does not even go into the importance of fledging at the natural age and training for free flight from a young age. This all has to do with brain development.

To condemn free flight on the basis of that experience (which Michael does) is like condemning riding horses because you tried to take a racing stallion for some cross-country jumps through the woods your first day of riding. If you can't see that, you don't know enough about free flight to truly form an opinion.

Pajarita wrote:How can you possibly believe that losing 10% of the birds on something that is not necessary for the bird's wellbeing falls under a 'responsible' practice'?! Sheesh! There is something very seriously wrong with that!


Uh...I think you'll find that a very similar proportion of indoor-only flyers go missing, lol. All it takes is one mistake, and people are not perfect. And some people argue that indoor flight is not necessary for their well-being and is not worth the risk, either. You also aren't taking into account different species, different locations, etc. It is well-known that some species, especially the ones that benefit the most from free flight, have higher success rates. Let's face it: you just hate free flight and are always going to hate it. That's up to you. I'm just here to offer a different perspective for people who may be reading.
PhelanVelvel
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 5
Number of Birds Owned: 40
Types of Birds Owned: Budgies, cockatiels, green-cheeked conures, galahs, a lesser sulphur-crested cockatoo, ring-necked doves, and...well, there's no partridge in a pear tree yet.
Flight: Yes

Re: On Behalf of Free-Flyers

Postby Tommy36 » Thu Jan 07, 2021 2:40 pm

Pajarita.
There is no falconer in the world, who would choose a location like that (for their raptors to fly) Neither free flyers should. At that point, his knowledge was 0.
Come on, picture explain much more than 1000 words. When I showed my fellow falconers where he was flying his parrots, they were flabbergasted, by his unfamiliarity with birds' behavior.

https://postimg.cc/PvfZg6x9
Tommy36
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
Posts: 4
Number of Birds Owned: 3
Types of Birds Owned: This spring will train Sun conure, Patagonian conure, and budgie for free flight.
Flight: Yes

Re: On Behalf of Free-Flyers

Postby Pajarita » Fri Jan 08, 2021 12:27 pm

Boy, talk about going on a tangent! First it was clipping versus free-flight and now it's my opinion of Michael. The subject here is not clipping, how many birds get lost even when they only fly indoors or what my opinion of Michael is - it's about the risk of free-flying parrots. Period. I do not -repeat: I DO NOT accept a loss of 10% as an acceptable risk and no bird lover ever would. If you were parents and were considering an activity for your children which would put 10% of your kids in danger, Child Services would take them away from you - you do realize that, don't you? I do not even accept 1% as an acceptable risk! I love my birds and would not put one at risk unnecessarily. It's as simple as that.

You can both go on and on about how much you like it and how wonderful it feels to see a bird flying against the sky, and how you learn from Tom, Dick or Harry to train them and about where you fly them makes a difference (city versus open spaces even though open spaces have birds of prey that can easily catch your birds in flight in an open space), etc. etc. but you will never convince me to put my birds at risk. Because, in all honesty, the awe and the wonder or whatever else you and anybody else might feel watching them fly is not important in my book (it's nothing but self-gratification). What is important to me is that my birds live a long, happy, healthy life under my care - and they do. They all come out to fly from dawn until one hour before dusk (and are being moved into the new cage-free birdroom this week -which has the length of the entire house because it's the attic- so they will be out all the time as they were before), they eat the right diet (no crappy pellets, no free-feeding seeds, organic gloop and raw produce, measured portions of high protein food, no animal protein, etc), have a strict solar schedule and good full spectrum lights for during the day, medical care, companions of their own species and all the love they might want from me but, if they don't want it, it's fine too. I am hoping to move to a new house where I can have two indoor birdrooms and one large flight outdoor aviary connected to the birdrooms so they can enjoy the sunshine and outdoors SAFELY.

Birds are, unfortunately for them, considered property in USA so people can do whatever they want with them (you can even kill them for no good reason) and, in my opinion and going by what you stated, you have knowingly chosen to imperil yours. I do believe that you truly think that you can control the situation but I am an old woman who has been rescuing (and rehabilitating/retraining) animals for many years and I can tell you without the shadow of a doubt that, when it comes to animals and their reactions, nobody is. Animals have unpredictable reactions and that is all there is to it. And, when it comes to parrots which did not evolve to live in a hierarchical society, training does not ever mean complete obedience. Furthermore, I did not want to correct you on this comment because I did not want you to feel that I was putting you down but no, there are no species of parrots that would not feel the urgent need to go looking for a mate once they reach a certain age and anybody who has any general knowledge of biology and zoology knows that - especially considering that, here in the Northern USA, the free-flying can only occur during their breeding season.

Now, you haven't said but I assume (and correct me if I am wrong) you got your birds as babies from a breeder (a requirement for somebody who has a specific training plan in mind for the bird but not for a bird lover) and that your birds are still very young (macaws under 10 years of age, conure under 5, etc) so, in my personal opinion and experience, even though you think you have it all down pat, you don't and are, instead, playing with fire. Something I hope from the bottom of my heart does not end up with one of your birds paying the price and you regretting your hubris (anybody who has rescued animals for many years will tell you that thinking you are in control is nothing but inflated self-confidence). But, my dears, it's up to you. All I can do is give you my opinion and explain what the basis of this opinion is - and I think I have done that. Namely, that I do not agree with free-flying because what you consider acceptable risk is not acceptable to me, especially taking into consideration that is not a necessity.
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 18701
Location: NW Pa
Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes

Re: On Behalf of Free-Flyers

Postby Tommy36 » Fri Jan 08, 2021 5:16 pm

Don't use Narcissist gaslighting technics. You are the one who mentions Micheals's expertise and that he try a free flight and gave up.

But We pointed to you how rubbish he was. You cant do falconry or free flight with parrots in such a small park surrounded by cityscape and other people. It's a recipe for disaster.
My good friend Marijan Oresko very knowledgeable veteran who keeps parrots all his life wrote this;
Did you know?

U.S. scientists have published appalling death figures for parrots living as pets in private homes. 95 NINETY-FIVE percent of larger parrots that live in the wild for 35-80 years at home die after 10 (TEN years)

of which as many as 45 (FORTY-FIVE) percent die after only 5 (FIVE) years .. with smaller parrots the numbers are less because it still makes a difference if a budgie cockatiel or GCC flying in circles in a room of 4 x 4. With larger parrots you cant do the same; Amazon, Patagonian, Cockatoo, Macaw .. do not have enough space for flight and energy consumption.

The reason is - you guessed it? fatty liver (tumor, lipoma) or cirrhosis of the liver due to food and bean anable to fly.. this is a consequence .. in third place is aspergillosis, a disease of the respiratory tract and lungs due to infection with the fungus mold .. shells of peanuts, coconut, but also many seeds that are stored or transport caught moisture) ..

and the cause for the liver is: excessive oilseeds and cereals with pellets that are full of chemicals and synthesized additives .. read: sunflower, millet, peanuts, hazelnuts, and various others .. read one more time: mixed food for parrots .. the "prestige", "premium", "deluxe" .. colorful and dazzling packaging with beautiful pictures of parrots and the price skyrocket .. at the same time companies don't give a flying f. when your parrot dies, you will buy a new one and use the same food again

So once again: let someone list me a country in the world where oilseeds and cereals ripen 12 months a year ..they ripen 3 months a year max, and what do they eat the other 9 months? I guess Herbalife energy bars. budgies in Australia feed mainly on wild grasses and not on fatty millet

LIVER - the most sensitive organ in parrots .. a diet that contains too much fat causes tumors (lipomas) and cirrhosis .. lipomas thicken the liver, the liver increases due to fat deposits .. then they decrease because the cells die, and that is cirrhosis .. the liver has fantastic ability to regenerate (other organs cant regenerate; heart, lungs) .. but dead liver cells cannot be regenerated .. cirrhosis inevitably leads to death .. the liver needs a lot of oxygen to work .. fat in the liver does not leak that oxygen and not to mention dead cells in cirrhosis.

another cause of death is a kidney infection, which automatically follows lipoma or cirrhosis of the liver .. do not spend in all these cases on the vet, expensive tests and findings because you will lower the salary and more .. no cure .. (ask alcoholics who died of cirrhosis liver) .. you cannot treat the consequence but you can eliminate or at least reduce the cause and prolong the life of your birds.

when you brag about how your parrot is calm, doesn't scream, doesn't tear furniture, doesn't fly, sits nicely in a cage, or goes out and sits on a cage all day again, well, it's nice to watch her - then your parrot is already slowly on its way towards the cemetery .. what you don't see is the fact that parrots successfully hide diseases and defects (hard flying, hard breathing, no air) .. that's why it becomes so "dear and calm".

just twist your parrot's neck and throw it in the trash .. sounds bitter? sounds insensitive? sounds manic? and why does it sound that way to you, when you've already slowly killed parrot by yourself? then shorten bird torment .. (I'm deliberately shocking you, so you can turn on your brain: D: D).
and now again about nutrition - as the scientists who conducted this research concluded:

A large proportion of mixed food is made up of very fatty seeds, sunflower, millet, flax. It is indisputable that millet and sunflower are quite healthy seeds, contain vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and as first aid can "lift" a sick bird (not if it has a liver disease!), BUT they are fatal due to their high-fat content if the parrot cannot consume their fat. and here we are again with the liver because these fats do not poop exit throws the cloaca but are deposited on their livers and destroy them .. so you have to estimate how much food to give them or to make them fly around the room. Better option to free fly them. Consider that parrots eat in nature less than yours, that have excess food, and fly even 40 kilometers a day, which means that your parrot has to fly over a 4 m long room 250 times (!) to make one kilometer and that is why mixed food slowly kills them .. (millet is normally the food of the poor, it is eaten by half of Africa and Asia as it used to be in Europe, but it has been suppressed here by potatoes and corn).

however, parrots try to eat as much energy as possible in the shortest possible
We have plenty of free flyers who fly bonded pairs of parrots and they are free to fly but keep coming back to their owner and to raise their chicks. So all your hypotheses are diminished.

watch and enjoy ;

https://youtu.be/fr2r3qPI7lY
Tommy36
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
Posts: 4
Number of Birds Owned: 3
Types of Birds Owned: This spring will train Sun conure, Patagonian conure, and budgie for free flight.
Flight: Yes

Re: On Behalf of Free-Flyers

Postby Tommy36 » Fri Jan 08, 2021 10:34 pm

And you forgot all about liberty parrots. Like pigeons, they are free 24/7 but they do a comeback, always, and enter inside aviary to; eat, breed, and shelter. This man keeps them this way for more than 20 years.

Enjoy;


https://youtu.be/HLojvmahgBM
Tommy36
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
Posts: 4
Number of Birds Owned: 3
Types of Birds Owned: This spring will train Sun conure, Patagonian conure, and budgie for free flight.
Flight: Yes

Re: On Behalf of Free-Flyers

Postby Pajarita » Sat Jan 09, 2021 1:51 pm

:lol: Calling all reinforcements, uh? What is it with you, guys? Why don't you read the whole thread before replying, find out more about the people with whom and about whom you are debating and brainstorm on good arguments for your cause? Because - and I am not trying to offend you but you people are really very bad at debating - and I do mean VERY BAD! Now, for the benefit of the 'new' guy who rushed to the aid of the ones that kind of muddled their position: I only mentioned Michael because the OP started the thread with "I see there is a forum member here who is seemingly obsessed with denouncing free flight" to which I replied that it wasn't only 'a' member (he was referring to me), that the owner was also against it and why. A simple correction to an erroneous statement and not an argument supporting my position.

And "gaslighting narcissistic techniques"? :lol: Please give me a single example of these 'techniques' I am using because, if I am, I am not aware of them. Maybe I misunderstand the meaning of the words or phrase because, as I said, English is not my first or even my second language so help me out and explain to me why rebutting all your points one by one with factual information denotes narcissism and/or psychological manipulation.

Let me recap the whole saga of your pro free-flight arguments:

First it was a binary choice: either a clipped bird or a free-flown one - nothing in between.

Then came the one about me being biased in my opinion and basing it on one single individual's performance - namely Michael who had failed for different reasons: self-taught or wrong mentor, wrong place, etc. Nope, it's safety. I never agreed with Michael free-flying his birds same as I don't agree with everything that Michael does or says (I don't even agree with taking birds out with a tether or taking them out at all).

Now came the second wave of help made a bit stronger with subtle insults (narcissist, psychological manipulator, Michael is rubbish), super wrong assumptions (my parrots sitting in a cage all day long eating seeds?! and the "when your parrot dies, you will buy a new one" :shock: say WHAAAAAT?) and causes of death in pet parrots going on and on preaching on liver, kidneys issues, etc. and how most of these problems are a consequence of an incorrect diet TO ME!!! :shock: :shock: Which is like telling Mother Teresa to be nice to people :lol: I've only been doing research on their natural diets since 1994 and preaching (pestering EVERYBODY and in almost every single post) about how bad the 'normal' diet for a pet parrot is for what? 25 years? Because I started before we even had birdsites and we used to get together once a month at bird clubs and bird supply stores to ask questions and compare notes, back when we invited scientists and behaviorists to give us lectures and workshops in person. Tommy, you REALLY should have read the diet forum first because darn, talk about missing by a mile! And then, of course, comes the conclusion that free-flying your birds will take care of all of this. So now we have a second binary choice: you either free-fly your birds or they will die of hepatic lipidosis. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

Look, I'll make it real simple for you and explain why never the twain shall meet no matter how much we argue. The real reason for the two different positions -namely: your being pro free-flight and my being against it- is simple: we come from different places and have completely different perspectives. I love all animals but I am passionate about birds and, to me, it has never been about me or what I get from my parrots, if they are pretty, if they talk, if they do tricks, if they fly to me when I call them (mind you, most of my birds do), etc. I don't even do any formal training and dislike even looking at videos of birds performing tricks! What my birds learn, they learn because they are super smart and I am super consistent and patient - they don't even get rewards! To me, it has always been about giving them a good, healthy and as happy a life in captivity as possible. Period. They do not have to do anything for me - they don't even have to love me or even like me because as long as they are healthy and happy, I am happy. You (as well as all falconers) are not bird lovers (nobody who uses an animal for self-gratification is) and that is why you can't understand my position. I understand yours -it is, after all, the most common position when it comes to animals- I just do not agree with it. Bird lovers don't do anything that does not benefit the bird - flying birds of prey does not benefit the birds that are flown, it only benefits the human that does it and, although all flying birds need flight for good health, when it comes to parrots, free-flight is too dangerous so alternatives need to be used. Going by what you have posted, it seems to me that you are what I call bird 'enjoyers' - you like what the bird does for you, what it gives you, what it makes you feel... This is not a criticism, it's a clarification of terms. It's a personal beef of mine that most people call themselves animal 'lovers' when, in reality, they are 'enjoyers' -and, again, this doesn't mean that they cannot love their own bird or that they will not take good care of it but it does mean that they will most definitely love and appreciate the 'good' bird more than the 'not good' one. They would also probably never consider rescuing any bird that needs a good home -definitely not a plucker that will never fly- they would prefer to buy a baby instead because an adult, probably neglected and/or abused and/or traumatized bird cannot be trained as efficiently and as quickly as a baby. Me? I love birds -all birds, my birds, your birds, every single bird there is- and I would not put a single one of them in danger for any reason and that, and nothing else, is what makes me anti free-flight.

Oh, and one last clarification - well, three: One is that you CAN treat fatty liver. You can't cure it but you can definitely stop the advance and even reverse the damage in the sense that you can increase its failing functions (you can bring down bile acid levels back into the normal range and keep them there and I know this for a fact because I have done it several times).
Two is that the liver is not the only organ that regenerates, the brain does too (look up 'endogenous regeneration').
Three is that contrary to what your friend Marijan Oresko (I've never heard of this person and I tried to do a search under the name but it brings up nothing) states, there are no studies, database, records or nothing on how many pet parrots die, of the causes of death or their ages so the figures he mentions are nothing but a guess based on anecdotal evidence and not something published by US scientists - and I know because I subscribe to three paid sites where they publish scientific studies. Not that I am arguing with the figures, I am not because, in truth, I (and for what I can tell, nobody else) actually knows what the right ones are. PIJAC has been very successful in keeping the industry completely unregulated and opaque.
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 18701
Location: NW Pa
Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes

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