Animals Used for Entertainment

India's Bird Trade

Birds Need Freedom and the Company of Other Birds

Because few humans care enough to acknowledge and appreciate birds’deep intelligence and feelings, these animals suffer terribly. If more people appreciated how rich and complex birds’ lives are in the wild, humans’ exploitation of birds, fuelled by the illegal “pet” trade, would decrease.

In their natural habitats, birds talk to each other just as humans do. Some bird species, such as crows, have hundreds of different calls that ornithological researchers can tell apart. Birds also make sounds that we don’t usually hear, like the hushed chatter and whispering between two nesting birds. They take turns talking, just as we do in conversation.

Birds are remarkably adept at navigating the skies and remembering exactly where they have hidden thousands of tiny seeds each fall. To find their way back to these caches, birds use the sun, stars, landmarks and sometimes the Earth’s electromagnetic field to guide them.

Birds also play, dance, engage in ‘hide-and-seek’ and other structured games and even slide down snow banks and climb back up over and over again for the sheer joy of it. Many species, like geese and pigeons, mate for life and will not take a second mate if their first is lost. All birds crave company because they are meant to be in flocks, and they are keen to preen each other, fly as a pair or group, play together, and share egg incubation duties.

Birds also grieve as we do. Some reports of this include the following: After a car killed a coucal’s (a member of the cuckoo family) mate, he refused to leave her side or stop trying to revive her; a robin who crippled his rival in a fight fed him and kept him alive; and pairs of terns lifted up a hurt flock mate by his wings, carrying him to safety.

In some ways, chickens are as smart as little kids, according to animal behaviourist Dr Chris Evans of Bristol University in England, who studies chickens. Chickens can learn to use switches and levers to change the temperature in their surroundings, and some have learned to open little doors to feeding areas. Discussing their various abilities, he explains, ‘As a trick at conferences, I sometimes list their attributes, without mentioning chickens, and people [think] I’m talking about monkeys’.

African gray parrots can have a greater aptitude for learning than a 5-year-old child. Veterinarian Dr Brian L. Speer reports, ‘We’re beginning to realize these animals are impressively intelligent. They’re a lot smarter than we used to think’.

Alex, a parrot, can understand and use hundreds of English words and phrases and can even creatively combine words when he needs to. He made up ‘banana cracker’ to mean banana chip and ‘rock corn’ to mean a rock-like Brazil nut in its shell.

Crows sometimes use tools fashioned from twigs to pick up food. But one crow amazed birdwatchers when she was seen going one step further and making her own tool! She cleverly bent a piece of wire in order to hook a piece of food that she couldn’t otherwise reach.

India’s Flourishing Avian Black Market

Despite the Wildlife Protection Act, which bans the trade and trapping of all indigenous birds, and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which restricts the trade of foreign birds, a black market in birds thrives openly in many places, involving 300 of the country’s estimated 1,200 species.

Laws designed to protect India’s birds are well intentioned but rarely enforced.

One of the largest illegal trades in animals takes place at Mumbai’s Crawford market. In 1997, the Bombay High Court ordered a committee to conduct raids at the market, which temporarily curbed the illegal trade. But the committee is no longer active, so the illegal activities of the animal dealers in the Crawford market, as well as in other markets just like it, are mushrooming.

Domestic Hawking

Bird markets thrive openly in many cities because police and wildlife officials commonly accept bribes from sellers. At the Nakhas market in Lucknow, one bird hawker sells ravens, rafter pigeons, wild roosters, turkeys, ducks, lovebirds and Sarus cranes, the world’s tallest flying bird and an endangered species. He keeps the cranes behind his shop next to a garbage heap.

At the Hoga market in Kolkatta every Sunday, village trappers sell more than 6,000 birds to the local sellers every market day. The next morning, the sellers offer their captives at other markets in and around Kolkatta.

Hati Bagan and Crawford Market in Mumbai are two other booming bird-trading locations.

Death in Transit From Forests to Cities

Poachers illegally bring in thousands of birds captured from the bird-rich hills and forests of the Northeast, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar – primarily around the Gangetic Plain and in the foothills of the Himalayas – or from southern states, such as Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Deccan Plateau.

Packed in small boxes and shipped on trains to cities, an estimated 60 per cent die on the way as a result of broken wings and legs, thirst or sheer panic and fright. Stationmasters and loaders are paid to look the other way.

Smuggling Birds Out of India

In March 2001, more than 10,000 birds were confiscated from one illegal dealer at the Mumbai airport. Approximately 50 of these grand-scale seizures happen each year, but many more slip through the cracks, making it clear that the ban on trading birds is, as conservation biologist Abrar Ahmed called it, ‘ineffective’.

While tens of thousands of birds are exported from India, many are confined to cages in homes right here.

Hideous Methods Are Used to Trap Birds

Fledgling birds are captured from their nests, and other birds are caught in traps or nets, which can cause serious injury or death for both parent and baby birds.

One method that trappers use is a slip-noose attached to a cow’s back and tail. As the cow swishes her tail, the noose opens and closes. After a day, usually at least two birds have been caught in the slip-noose, often with hurt or broken legs.
Trappers also use ‘mist nets’ and ‘clap nets’, which catch unwitting birds who fly straight into it. Struggling to break free, most birds suffer serious injury.

There are at least three variations of the ‘lime stick’ method, which uses ‘Bird Lime’, a substance made from peepal tree sap and slaked lime. Trappers apply Bird Lime to extension poles, which they probe into trees’ high branches, the insides of domes, and sticks hanging from trees, with insects and bird decoys acting as bait.

Bird Trading Wreaks Ecological Havoc

Birds play an important role in maintaining ecological balance. Their dwindling numbers are beginning to take a devastating toll on India’s forests, which need birds to spread seeds in order to thrive. It is estimated that for every parakeet or munia in captivity, there is one tree less in India.

Many of the birds being widely traded are threatened species, such as the swamp francolin (Francolinus gularis), green munia (Estrilda formosa), Finnâs baya (Ploceus megarhynchus) and Shaheen falcon (Falco peregrinus).

Of the 300 species of birds being traded, 16 are among the world’s most highly endangered, 36 are listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and six are included on the Red Data list of endangered species compiled by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).

Enslaved and Stressed in Captivity

Birds, who should be nesting with a mate of their own choosing, socialising, soaring through the sky and otherwise living a full life, suffer severe stress and unhappiness in captivity. If separated from a previous partner, captive birds become depressed and can pine and grieve and even die of a broken heart.

Confining birds results in ‘acting out’, including mood swings, temper tantrums and neurotic or destructive behaviour, such as chewing on carpet, electrical and phone wires, pulling out feathers and mutilating themselves, sometimes to the point of death. Because wild-caught birds are often frightened and high-strung, they may nervously nip at their ‘owners’, who may never want to handle them again and therefore condemn the birds to live imprisoned in a cage forever.

Learn How You Can Help Stop Cruelty to Birds

If You Already Have a Bird

Please click here to read PETA’s factsheet of tips on caring for captive birds.

If you or people you know already have birds and are unable to provide them with a full life of companionship, interesting things to do and space to fly, please consider the following:

• Birds need other birds. Find out if there is a bird sanctuary or a very large, securely enclosed aviary in which you can safely release the bird. Ideally, place birds with other members of their own species. Check the climate, potential for mating, opportunities for privacy, and other key factors.

• Mating should be allowed, but please don’t allow breeding—eggs should be hollowed by draining them through a small hole, or there should be no nest boxes. Neither solution is ideal, but these birds are living under unnatural conditions, and it would be inhumane to allow more birds to be born into a captive environment.

• If you cannot find a reputable sanctuary or aviary, donate the bird to someone trustworthy and kind who has other birds of the same species, allows them to live in a free-flight situation, and will never separate them once they have bonded.

• Do not put a large bird like a macaw with a small bird like a cockatiel—this can be terrifying to the smaller bird. Also, species from different continents may never get along and can transmit diseases for which the others have no immunity.

Read and learn all you can about the types of birds you have, including how they live in the wild. For example, it can frighten a tree-dweller to be placed on the floor or in a cage that’s low to the ground.

If you have a wild-caught bird, please contact PETA India right away:

PETA India
PO Box 28260
Juhu, Mumbai 400 049
India
+91 (022) 2628-1880
+91 (022) 2628-1883 (fax)

Flight

Let your birds fly ‘free’, meaning in the house, for long periods of time every day—spending as much time out of the cage as possible. Convert your balcony or porch into an aviary or build a good-weather one in your backyard, if possible. Otherwise, provide a ‘bird-proof’ room or rooms—with no ceiling fans or other bird hazards. Include a bird ‘gym’ or tree for exercise.
Some birds have learned to seek the security of a cage at night. Inside the aviary, provide a covered cage or similar retreat that the birds can enter and exit at will. Birds wish to sleep at dusk and must be given a familiar, quiet, covered, dark place then. They also wish to rise at dawn.

Cages

Cages should be as spacious as possible, with ample room for birds to spread their wings and fly about. Your birds should not be able to put their heads through the cage bars because they can easily become trapped. Many cages are made of galvanised wire. These cages should be thoroughly washed and scrubbed to eliminate the risk that the zinc, which is used to galvanise the wire, could become toxic to your birds.

Birds need to exercise the muscles in their feet, so supply wooden perches of different shapes and diameters—from the size of a pencil to a dowel large enough so the birds’ toes cannot wrap all the way around.

Poisons and Other Hazards

Do not cut the birds’ wing feathers. Instead, let them enjoy flying.
Eliminate hazards like ceiling fans, pots of water, open toilet bowls, places where they could get stuck, sprayed vegetables, electrical wires, large glass windows and mirrors, etc.

The fumes emitted by Teflon when it is overheated and by self-cleaning ovens are deadly to birds—never use them in a home with birds.

Peanuts can contain aflatoxin, which can be fatal to birds. Pencil lead can also be fatal if eaten. Chocolate, parsley and avocados are poisonous to birds. Make sure that none of your plants is poisonous to the species of bird living in your home.

Use ecologically safe products—no strong cleaners, aerosols, artificial air fresheners or insecticides.

Some apartment complexes demand that you make your apartment available to exterminators—usually you can legally refuse for ‘health reasons’.

Diet

Give your birds thoroughly washed natural fruit, such as peepul tree fruit, every day. Cabbage stalks, carrot pieces, small pieces of chapati, boiled rice, seeds like millet, sprouts, corn, green chillies, watermelon and mango are all healthy snacks for birds. Parakeets enjoy seeds with a high oil content, such as sunflower seeds.