Quite a few years ago, I had a partime job at a Wild Bird Center store (Not WBU, different franchise).
A customer "donated" a sun parakeet to the store. SaraBird was very popular with customers especially an elderly nun. I forget the sister's name, but she seemed to be able to calm the parakeet. When the store closed in 2013, the sun parakeet went with the owner to Dallas.
I often worried that the store owner were setting a precedent, but they emphasized that it was more a rescue. We never encouraged parrot ownership.
When Duluth got our Wild Birds Unlimited in the early 90s, the owners kept a pet cockatiel in the store. When the store changed owners, the new ones kept the bird, but it eventually died. A lot of people believe that birders must love pet birds, and I sure loved having my education birds over the years, but it's a peculiar thing. I never felt comfortable talking about how pleasant it was having an owl in my home office because he required a lot of the kind of care normal people wouldn't have given him, to say nothing of my obligations as a state- and federally-licensed educator. He was non-releasable, and I got him from a rehab center in Ohio when their alternative was euthanasia--I had to furnish both my licenses for them to even consider giving him to me.
Quite a few years ago, I had a partime job at a Wild Bird Center store (Not WBU, different franchise).
A customer "donated" a sun parakeet to the store. SaraBird was very popular with customers especially an elderly nun. I forget the sister's name, but she seemed to be able to calm the parakeet. When the store closed in 2013, the sun parakeet went with the owner to Dallas.
I often worried that the store owner were setting a precedent, but they emphasized that it was more a rescue. We never encouraged parrot ownership.
When Duluth got our Wild Birds Unlimited in the early 90s, the owners kept a pet cockatiel in the store. When the store changed owners, the new ones kept the bird, but it eventually died. A lot of people believe that birders must love pet birds, and I sure loved having my education birds over the years, but it's a peculiar thing. I never felt comfortable talking about how pleasant it was having an owl in my home office because he required a lot of the kind of care normal people wouldn't have given him, to say nothing of my obligations as a state- and federally-licensed educator. He was non-releasable, and I got him from a rehab center in Ohio when their alternative was euthanasia--I had to furnish both my licenses for them to even consider giving him to me.