Yesterday we posted an interview with Mr Tri Prayudhi, ProFauna Indonesia’s Campaign Officer. ProFauna works to protect the wildlife of Indonesia - which, of course, includes many species of large - and often very rare now - cockatoos.

I’m expecting to get some strong reactions to this interview. We welcome informed comments on the blog and we welcome comments that allow a discussion to take place, but please remember this 10,000 Birds is privately-owned not a public forum and we can and will censor or delete any comments that do not adhere to that spirit of debate.

Charlie, thanks for talking to us as part of our ‘Parrot Month’. Would you mind introducing yourself to our readers?

• CK: My name is Charlie King. I work as an oilfield consultant and have travelled all over the world. My longest straight stint was three years in Papua New Guinea and Australia where I gained my love of birds.

  My neighbour and I are Hummingbird enthusiasts; I photograph them and he carves them. We feed year round and have birds year round. I am 61 years old now and have decided to finish my career working in my back yard, the Gulf of Mexico.

You run MyToos.com, a hard-hitting, no-holds-barred website about owning Indonesian cockatoos that is entirely different to anything else I came across while researching this theme. You use plenty of bold type, large fonts, images of self-mutilating birds, and visitors are greeted by the screeching of a very voluble cockatoo. Could you give our readers a summary of the site’s aims and the reasons for the way the information is presented?

• CK: Thank you, Charlie, Mike, Corey, for having Parrot Month! There is a need for Mytoos. If one were to conduct a Google search for “parrot forums” looking for help and guidance, he or she would invariably get something like this “I have 15 birds at present and now I want my “dream bird”, a Moluccan Cockatoo. My mom says that as soon as I graduate, she will pay half so now I am looking for a cheap breeder. Can you help me, PLEASE!” Someone has got to step to the plate and tell the truth and that would be us. The site is presented the way it is because that is the way a Cockatoo will present itself to you! We are not trying to sugar-coat the experience of living with a cockatoo because daily we have people stumbling on to Mytoos begging for help. It is also important to point out that Mytoos was meant to convey the message read on the main page. There is a reading library and a message board but, aside from torturing these majestic creatures inadvertently, we also want to avoid people jumping off the deep end. We want them to consider what they are doing and really examine their reason for even considering a long-lived, winged, wild animal as a pet.

  We have a reputation as “hard” but if one finds him or herself in possession of a cockatoo and turn to Mytoos, they will find help and acceptance. If someone is inquiring about paying money for a cockatoo, we will do everything in our power to talk them into looking at one of the many in rescues. Rescues are full of cockatoos that ended up there through no fault of their own. They are not “problem birds”, they are just abandoned and need a flock to take them in.

It seems that many of the most ardent parrot people I’ve talked to discovered that passion through owning a parrot, learning more about them, and then realising that their ecology makes them unsuitable – in many cases – as pets. Am I right do you think, and was that how you came involved with MyToos?

• CK: Yes, that’s exactly right! My wife and I became very interested in acquiring an African Grey parrot 10 years ago. We thought a talking bird would be fun! We went to a Bird Fair. The two African chicks there looked bedraggled which didn’t affect us much except that we didn’t want a “ragged” bird. One breeder had two cockatoos, a Moluccan and a Greater Sulphur-crested, both one year old chicks. The Galerita hung onto me and we took her home. In two months time, my wife and I were at our wits end. I walked up to that bird one day while she was in her cage screaming, she screamed nonstop and my wife could not be near her without an attack and serious bite. Looking at her screaming, rattling the windows in the house actually, I realized fully and completely in one moment that what I had done was wrong. This animal was full of vibrant energy and was in a cage.

  We then embarked on a series of behaviour consultants and that helped somewhat. After two years, I was browsing the internet and found Mytoos. I was immediately struck by the truthfulness of all the information but, in all honesty, my initial goal was to befriend some of the members and find a better home for “Baby” than I was able to give her. What I finally realized was that she was in the best home she could have! We had accepted the lifestyle change and now had to relax, accept and go about the business of living as a “flock” with a cockatoo.

  I’m so glad you mentioned ecology, the branch of biology dealing with the relations and interactions between organisms and their environment, including other organisms, because that is the crux of being able to exist in an environment that a cockatoo might find acceptable! It is possible to learn enough about their ecology to simulate many of the conditions that they would find more natural. The more natural one can make their environment, the more content they will be, it requires sacrifice and dedication on the human part of the “flock” and this is where humans and parrots often collide.

“This is Joey, one of Mytoos first “poster birds”. We have had many over the years. This picture shows Joey finding his first true caretaker, or one that cared anything about him. Unfortunately, Joey had suffered enough in his previous life and died shortly after this picture was taken. One will not see birds looking like this in nature!”

You provide serious and knowledgeable advice on MyToos. Are you at all worried that some people may leave the site without getting past the first page because of the way that information is presented?

• CK: Not really. It will happen, surely, but our message board signs up 3-4 new members a day, not even a fraction stay active but we know the Message gets out. This site was conceived and implemented by a very passionate man that loves the large Indonesian cockatoos, Jerry Waters. He ran the site for ten years but he had finally decided that the message was there for all to read and we had answered most all questions members could come up with regarding the proper care of cockatoos. He grew tired of repeating himself and with good reason! A group of us decided that we would help all comers. Although we have an excellent search engine on our board, many new members are really grabbing at straws by the time they find us. Until we burn out, we will help!

A site like MyToos takes an awful lot of time to keep updated, promote, moderate, administrate etc….

• CK: It does. We have a small staff but they are excellent. We have another Administrator who is a computer engineer. He keeps our software state of the art and running efficiently. With a webmaster like this, we have very few technical difficulties. We are there! We have four Moderators. One Moderator was actually hand feeding birds at one time and is our resident expert. We definitely do not condone chicks and refuse to answer handfeeding and weaning questions but many members show up with starving chicks and she can point them in the right direction and keep them from the myriad of pitfalls involved in feeding chicks. We also have a zookeeper as a Moderator and two that have taken in birds that were in bad shape and given them new lives, one is actually a staff member of a reputable avian rescue organization. The really impressive part of Mytoos, however, is the core of long time, cockatoo experienced keepers that we have day in and day out to help, members that have walked the walk. Although generalizations can be made about cockatoos, the individual birds can be as different as any two people can be. There are different solutions, sometimes, to the same problems and these people can sort it out!

You don’t accept advertising, so none of you do it for the money. I think I know what your answer will be but I’ll ask anyway: what’s your motivation, and what would you consider to be ‘a good day’ on MyToos?

• CK: We want to be able to say the things that need saying. If we accepted advertising dollars or anything related, it would have strings attached that would bind us, tie our hands at some point. Everyone at Mytoos is a volunteer and has nothing to gain except the occasional satisfaction that comes with making a difference in the life of another intelligent animal.

  A good day is the one in which we receive a letter from a grateful individual thanking us for all the true life experiences they’ve read and are not personally ready for.

I can imagine most people – myself included – don’t understand how much time and effort goes into looking after a large bird like a Moluccan/Seram Cockatoo. Is it possible to draw a comparison with, say, owning a dog to give us a better idea?

• CK: Well, honestly, there is no comparison at all. Most of the animals people keep as pets are domesticated. Parrots and cockatoos are only a generation or two removed from their wild counterparts. These animals are still wild at heart, their wild instincts are still fully intact and, on top of that, they are prey animals. Even the best cockatoo caretaker can become complacent; get a trusted cockatoo too close to their face and end up with a pierced nose or ear because the bird was spooked by something the clumsy human never even saw! The bird acts naturally trying to drive the flock to safety with a quick nip. Quick nips are communication to wild cockatoos; they can be surgery to humans!

  These instincts become a real challenge for the caretaker once the bird becomes sexually mature. As a birder, Charlie, you have seen it season after season, the inexorable drive that birds have to breed. It is the strongest instinct, the survival of species; nothing is stronger to a bird. A captive cockatoo has the same instinct and drive to reproduce except nothing is right! Their chosen mate hasn’t a clue and does not cooperate in any way. The birds become extremely confused and, as a last resort, lash out trying to force compliance with a recalcitrant and unsuspecting mate - a human. These are the situations that are truly dangerous as severe attacks can be seen along with nest protective behaviour in males and egg laying with the associated egg binding health problems in females. You can take a dog to the vet and spay it. This is very rarely an option in birds as the reproductive organs are closely attached to other major organs giving this major surgery about a 50/50 chance. If the surgery is successful, there is a very good chance that the gonads will regenerate over time! Keeping a companion cockatoo during “season” is another trying and demanding experience most people cannot handle.

  Other things: dogs live up to 20 years; large cockatoos, 50-80 years. A dog vet is around the corner, a qualified avian vet is relatively rare. Dogs are generally a forgiving and trusting animal species, parrots and cockatoos can have their trust destroyed by a wrong move or action and require one to “re earn” it. The list goes on but I think you get the general idea.

That’s a great answer. Tell me, how would you answer those people who say that MyToos only tell one side of the story and that cockatoos placed in the right home will live reasonable lives?

• CK: I would agree with them that if a cockatoo is placed in the “right” home that it has a chance to live a reasonable life, I would also tell them that the “right” homes are few and far between. Yes, we only tell the true side of the story; no one forces people to join Mytoos!

“This turn of the century photo shows a Moluccan Cockatoo chained to the perch, with nothing to do but mutilate itself.” From http://www.mytoos.com/chained.shtml

 

“This is our current “poster bird”, Noelle, so named because she came home with our Moderator, Janet Howell, on Christmas day last year. She was taken in through The Central Virginia Parrot Sanctuary where Janet is a volunteer. Her vet believes she is a wild caught bird and her feet were mangled on purpose by trappers so that her cries would attract other birds. She has bandages to cover the two centimeter hole that she has chewed into her chest. These birds never look like this in the wild!”

You have a large membership and your members aree a remarkably compassionate group with a genuine desire to let others know how difficult it is to own cockatoos. Are they mostly parrot owners who discovered your site and found it struck a familiar chord concerning problems they’d encountered with their own birds, or do you get non-owners joining too?

• CK: Oh, yes, we have a good proportion of members that start reading and immediately recognize things they have seen in their own birds. It is amazing really and we do have many members that naturally “understand” our Agenda and just like to support and be a part of the program. We are welcoming of anyone that will take an interest in these large cockatoos and want to help. We do emphasize the large Indonesian Cockatoos because they seem much more sensitive and have the greatest difficulty living in a captive situation; they can actually start to pull their own feathers and mutilate their bodies. Most members, however, will acknowledge the fact that parrots in general have no place in a cage. Once denied their birthright, freedom/flight/choices, we are obligated to provide a semblance of contented life for the ones amongst us now. All that agree are welcome.

I’ve not seen any of the large Indonesian species of cockatoo in the wild, but I have seen several of them in Australia. They are undoubtedly beautiful, but they are also large, very active and very noisy birds (I once described calling Sulphur-crested Cockatoos as sounding like dinosaurs shouting into megaphones). Can a cockatoo ever make a ‘good pet’ in your opinion?

• CK: A dinosaur with a megaphone is a very apt description! There are two words I try to avoid when talking about cockatoos, own and pet. I read your excellent article about humans having enough hubris to suggest that they can “own” another life form. I find that totally ridiculous! Since I consider cockatoos basically wild animals, I never refer to them as pets.

  Pets are, or should be, domesticated animals, wild animals do not become or make good “pets” If properly handled, a cockatoo can make a very good “companion” but it takes a special person to recognize that you will also be the bird’s companion and the bird has expectations and needs that must be met in order for the relationship to be mutual, and if it is not mutual, both parties will suffer.

Would you like to see a time when there are no Moluccan or Umbrella cockatoos in domestic households at all, or would that be a step too far?

• CK: I would personally like that. There should come a time when they are not subjected to cages, and let’s face it, a prison is a prison, it matters not if it is the Taj Mahal; if one cannot leave, it is a prison. That would be bad enough for us and we don’t have wings! I won’t see this time; I don’t think it will come but I think it should.

The more I research this subject, the more I’m becoming convinced that the people who really should be blamed for the plight many ‘companion’ parrots find themselves in are not the owners but the pet/breeding industry. It seems to me that it simply doesn’t provide the kind of information on looking after pet parrots that it should and many people thinking of owning a parrot just don’t understand what that commitment involves. Am I on the right track there would you say?

• CK: Absolutely! If stores and breeders were honest about what living with a sexually mature large parrot or cockatoo is really like, they would be out of business, like now! They have absolutely no compunction about telling a would be buyer anything to make a sale. These people are in business! They really strive in their sales presentation to make the whole situation of “owning” a cockatoo idyllic. The breeder I used absolutely assured me that a veterinarian was a waste of money. I could just call him and he would tell me anything I needed to know.

  The large Indonesian cockatoos make matters worse because, up to one year of age, they are little puddles of white feathers with huge black eyes set in neonatal heads. They are absolutely beautiful, compliant and irresistible to most unsuspecting animal lovers. The breeder will send these people home with that well fed bird and a bag of seed and the bird will immediately start to starve to death. In nature, the parents would not leave that chick’s side for at least a year. They will have to teach that chick what is and isn’t food. The parents never let the chick cry, it is abundantly fed; this is documented frequently now on nest cavity cameras. That chick doesn’t know what’s in that bowl! That chick wants his parents! In addition to being malnourished, the chick’s sense of personal security is gone. These are prey animals and should have others around, if not to teach them, to provide the security of a flock. Of course, the breeder or store will tell the customer that that chick will be fine while they’re at work for eight hours, the chick is fully weaned, just stick a bowl of seed in there!

  Flying is another thing that parents start with the chick in the first year. Flying is what makes a cockatoo a cockatoo. Guess what most breeders do? They cut the wings of the chick as soon as they start flapping them because they have large wingspans and it can scare customers, especially the ones that have never “owned” a bird. What is left of that chick’s sense of safety is gone now. That bird is permanently scarred for life, a shadow of the bold, raucous individual it should be. How sad that an individual would abuse an animal like that in order to make a living.

A strong statement like that presumably doesn’t go down well with the breeding community?

• CK: I do not need to tell you, Charlie, that the avicultural community will go ballistic reading this and label me an animal rights “whacko”, again. They are a powerful business lobby and they are well represented in all venues. They have manpower and financial power. They are a force to be reckoned with. The fact remains that large cockatoos live a very long time, they are intelligent animals, they form very strong flock bonds and they suffer mightily from what these people subject them to for money. There are only so many ways to combat this so we do all we can with the resources we have and hope to get more and more people to listen the “other side of the story”.

Would you like to see eg legislation brought in that says that proper information on keeping a cockatoo must be given at the point of sale, or would you just like to see the sale of cockatoos in pet stores (specifically) banned outright?

• CK: Of course I would LIKE to see an outright ban. One state has enacted a law to prohibit the sales of unweaned chicks, California. From all I can tell, this has not helped because all birds wean at different times, weaning is considered to be when a chick can eat on its own. A starving bird will peck around in seeds but that is, in no way, an indication that a bird is weaned, especially cockatoos. Everything is very vague and can be twisted, as aviculturists will say I am twisting this argument. It is worth noting that several big chain pet stores like PetSmart and PETCO have decided, or made agreements, not to sell large parrots and cockatoos so public pressure can and does help. This is a wonderful step because these stores typically hire part time workers and pay on the low end of the scale so accurate information about large parrots is non-existent in most stores.

What would be the ideal situation regarding the selling of cockatoos?

• CK: The ideal situation is to leave these birds alone, what is left of them, in the wild. When breeders talk about “conservation” and “preservation of species”, they have to know that their arguments are a joke. They will never put one bird back in a natural setting. The birds they raise would not last one day in the jungle. There are real reintroduction breeding programs that are legitimate but these are not bird mills or backyard breeders, they are academics and animal experts that raise birds under strict conditions to ensure that the chicks are not imprinted by humans, that they have the company of a like flock and that they are exposed to native foods, etc. This is very labour intensive, expensive and slow!

Your site evidently aims to ‘head people off at the pass’ as it were and get information to them before they buy a cockatoo. For that you need people to visit your site though. Google loves you, but do you or your members do anything ‘offline’ to get them to visit or to spread the message as well?

• CK: Yes, we are a Google giant! We do have plans in the making. We have inquiries out right now to sponsor a booth at next year’s National Parrot Rescue and Preservation Foundation event. It just concluded for this year in the Houston, TX area and several of our members attended. They reported back that it was a great experience that they were proud to take part in so we will try to make a unified showing for the coming year.

  I must say that many of our members spend time visiting pet stores and talking to individual sales people and store managers about the condition of their birds and how to help them. People that own and run pet stores usually love animals; they are just ignorant of a lot of very real facts with respect to large birds of the parrot family. These visits are meant to be helpful and they have been very well received. Many more members carry Mytoos cards with our website address and leave these in places where birds are bought and sold. We have a member right now compiling a newspaper ad with a Mytoos announcement and a picture of our current poster bird, Noelle. There is nothing quite like the bird guardians that are members of Mytoos.

  I personally hope to have Mytoos involved in more activities as time goes on.

You say on your website that you also support organisations like Dr Stewart Metz’s Indonesian Parrot Project. What form does that support take, and would you like to do more?

• CK: Mytoos has an organizational membership and my Patron Circle membership is dedicated to Mytoos. If you click on my name, that brings up the Mytoos website. Many members are also members of Stewart’s Project Bird Watch. Aside from strictly monetary contributions, we always try to tout Stewart’s Ecotours and the important work he does there. It is important work to stabilize native populations of these beautiful treasures and no one has sacrificed more than Stewart Metz to see that dream come true. He is the real deal! He is also a member of Mytoos.

The ‘real deal’ is a perfect description - and for anyone who’d like to know why we have an earlier parrot Month interview with Dr Stewart Metz right here which is well worth reading. I sense that if you had unlimited funds and unlimited time you’d like to offer much more support than you can do now?

• CK: I would then like to be directly involved with his work, in some fashion that he sees fit to endorse.

You wrote in an email to me that we (10,000 Birds) “are doing more for parrots and cockatoos than you probably realize”. I took that to mean that was about Parrot Month, and that there is very little information on the net that presents parrots as anything but pets or companions. Is that what you meant, and if that’s the case why do you think that is, and would you like more blogs or birding websites to present information the way we have?

• CK: I am talking specifically about your Parrot Month and the interviews you have conducted with people that genuinely care for these animals. I would suspect that birders, of all people, would appreciate that most birds are not captured and sold like parrots, or bred in huge warehouses to be sold to every Tom, Dick and Harry with a dollar and then sent to languish in small cages when the novelty wears off. This may enliven some birders to speak up, whenever they get the chance, to more people than we can normally reach about the plight of the parrots and cockatoos. You are doing us a wonderful service by expanding our reach and we need all of that we can get!

  I also hope you will use your wonderful website, resources and connections with others to help expand this knowledge exponentially. Together we can spread a message that it is better to see these beautiful gems in nature than to see the pitiful examples that we are used to seeing, the ones hatched and raised by aviculture to be sold as commodities.

From what you’ve seen on 10,000 Birds is there more that we could have done with ‘Parrot Month’, or could still do, in your opinion?

• CK: I know you have already gone well over a month! I suppose you could rename your site “350parrots”! Honestly, it is so refreshing to find a few others along the way that see the big picture and actually want to help. Your Parrot Month has helped us immensely and for that I am very grateful. Maybe we could count on this as an annual event on your website.

Well over a month, yes, but when we started we were just planning a Parrot Week! I’m very glad we’ve been flexible or we’d have missed talking to people like you. Speaking of which, few owners – with the notable exception of David Woodbury of Parrot-Link and now yourself - have offered to talk to us and one well-known blogger decided we were trying to walk them into a trap and withdrew a guest post at the last moment. Did you have to think long and hard when I asked if you’d like to be interviewed?

• CK: Ha, Ha! Not at all! Our Agenda is listed as the first forum on our message board. We are straight forward and not concerned with traps.

This is probably an unfair question, but I’m only asking because I’m very interested to know what you think. MyToos members are parrot-owners, and 10,000 Birds – despite a genuine attempt to be open-minded – are against owning birds. Our aims however – to present information about parrots that shows them as wild birds that face the same threats as wild birds everywhere and not just as ‘pets’ suitable for any home - seem broadly similar. I have no doubt at all that your members (in fact, especially YOUR members from what I’ve read on your message boards) are a compassionate and very caring group of people. I’ve been surprised (and pleased) to learn how much we all have in common despite being apparently on ‘different sides’ of the argument. Do you agree that we do have much in common, and should I not even be talking about sides when it comes to welfare issues like these?

• CK: I do believe there are sides but not deliberately. People are falling for the “parrots as pets” spiel because they are uninformed. They are not doing their homework. Most parrot magazines are thinly veiled sales devices. I found it interesting that although I was a Companion Parrot Quarterly subscriber for many years, last year I was denied access to their online discussion forums. My subscription ended that day. Most bird magazines have a mention of someone “rescuing” a parrot but you will never see the articles documenting how many parrots are in rescues and sanctuaries now. You will not see interviews with veterinarians that are seeing more and more avian euthanasia. You will not see articles about “rescues” that were raided and hundreds of sick and dying birds were recovered because good intentions went awry. These publications and most websites are purely “aviculture” in nature, they promote buying and “owning” parrots. People are starting to wake up though. There are many more websites and blogs popping up every day to denounce many of the obscene breeding practices that are reaching epidemic proportions.

  Our two sites do have much in common. I guarantee you that most Mytoos members with birds, me included, would absolutely love to hold our cockatoos over our heads and release them into their native countries to live happily ever after. That, unfortunately, is not going to happen. These birds were given a prison sentence for coming into being and our job now is to minimize the trauma and let them live as close to a natural life as possible, to give them some semblance of a flock and to try to keep their active and intelligent brains engaged by providing acceptable “jobs” so that they do not self destruct. Your site and ours want many of the same things but mainly the ability to go where the birds live and see them, and this should not include living rooms.

Charlie, many thanks indeed for talking to us, and the best of luck with your continuing work.

• CK: You are most welcome. Please invite all your colleagues to visit our site!

Which is…?

• CK: MyToos.com - and let me leave you with one final thought…

  ‘All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.’
  Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)