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Comment by garblegarble | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, the whole idea of keeping birds seems painfully sad to me - taking creatures that have this amazing power of natural flight, with agency to explore vast landscapes and see amazing things, and then keeping them inside (and/or sometimes with clipped wings).

And added to that how difficult it can be for long-lived birds when their caretakers die and they can be left with somebody who doesn't really like them (or whom they don't really like), or donated to a zoo... a family friend's parrot was given to a (very good) butterfly house when she died and he just seems so sad every time I see him now

Maybe I'm just being narrow-minded, and the exact same thing is true for dogs & cats

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It’s why the symbolism of caged birds is a recurrent literary device for a long as the history of literature.

For those like me who thought clipped wings meant exactly that, at least from what I have learned it usually just means removing 1 or 2 large feathers at the wing tips, not amputating an actual part of the wing.

Maybe this is obvious to everyone else but for me this thing seemed way worse than it actually was.

For some pet parrots, yes, flight feathers are trimmed as they come in to temporarily prevent or reduce flight, but traditionally, ducks and geese being raised for meat and feathers do have part of the outside wing joint removed to permanently prevent flight - this is called pinioning.

At least they won't be hungry, getting fed more than they would eat on their own [0]. That seems to be called gavage.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force-feeding

While that's good to hear, what disturbs me about clipping wings is robbing a bird of their ability to fly

As long as they're not fully clipped, they can still fly, but they don't get a ton of lift. Parrot owners typically do it so they don't accidentally fly outside and end up in a worse situation than a few clipped feathers that grow back in a few months. Birds get spooked by the most random things, so it's hard to know what will trigger them to fly into danger

Fully clipping their flight feathers is cruel, dangerous and can result in injury when a bird falls more than a few feet. Also causes muscle atrophy and makes the birds dependant on their humans

The one I saw flew fine, for short distances and indoors at least.

Domestic cats are another story. Mine actually prefers inside and is not very social even with other cats. Prefers solitude, sleep, cuddles and eating. My dog, on the other hand, a 70lb Husky mix requires a great deal of activity outside as well as socialization with his pack of friends from the dog park. 2+ hours of physical activity and socialization a day keeps him happy but, you have to be a responsible pet owner, listen to your pets and give them everything they need and more. Your pet shouldn't just be surviving, they should be thriving. It's your responsibility.

Do you feel differently about fish who can swim?

No fish is so intelligent as the simplest bird.

I would not bet my money on it. In some areas fishes can score higher than many other vertebrates for sure, including big apes

Anybody keeping an aquarium knows that many fishes are surprisingly smart. Specially predatory fishes. They have a good long term memory and can recognize individual caretaker humans.

The brain/bodyweight ratio of some species is bigger than humans. This mean that they have a bigger brain that most birds, lizards and rodents of the same size. Sharks are pretty clever for example.

A very good question - I do feel differently about fish, and I think it's the relative level of intelligence.

As you suggest, it's clearly not just because birds have an ability to explore an environment natively that humans don't.

I'm sure that's a bias towards similarities with human intelligence - to communicate, solve puzzles, and use tools (e.g. crows and parrots) because it would be very sad if people were regularly keeping octopuses in home fish tanks.

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