by S. August Abbott (TheCaretaker)

Created on: July 09, 2009   Last Updated: November 19, 2009

When you clip your fingernails or have your hair cut, do you suffer? Does it hurt, scar or maim you? Of course not. So any argument or debate that includes the horrors of wing trimming cruelty is probably well meaning, but not an educated or informed point of view.

The reality is that wing trimming doesn't hurt the bird any more than having your hair cut or trimming your fingernails. Most of the time, the reasons old wives tales die hard and slow is because it's easier to believe in what amounts to scary stories and it's more exciting to rant and rave with a stance that might appear to be on the side of a helpless animal.

Being a voice for animals though, well, that's what I do. Every day of the year, not a vacation in more than a decade and for no more pay than the satisfaction of doing the right thing - I rescue, rehabilitate and re-home abused, neglected and abandoned animals. Unfortunately, birds are a huge part of my rescue because so few other rescue orgs are equipped or informed enough to deal with them. Even more unfortunate is that with myths like "wing trimming is horrible!" - there are always lost and badly injured, terrified pet birds coming to me and often never being reunited with their owners.

It's more fun to rant about abuse and injustices done to animals than to learn the whole story and do the right thing. In the past ten days I have re-homed 8 beautiful birds who were found in backyards, near roads and traffic or repeatedly trying to get into some strangers houses. All of these birds were once someone's loved pet that wouldn't be in this frightening and extremely dangerous situation if loved enough to trim.

Some of the more frequent calls I get are from worried sick bird owners who often insist that after years of not flying off or flying out, "all of a sudden" their bird did the unthinkable. Their beloved companions may never be seen again. This is a pretty hard thing to live with, always feeling the guilt of not wing trimming. It only takes one mistake. There are a lot of new advocates for wing trims, most of them owners who have learned the hard way and who, sometimes many years later are still looking to the sky and straining to hear the familiar sound of their little bird. Not know what happened to them is often the hardest part.

Quickly grabbed and eaten by an owl, hawk or ground stalking predator? Or attacked by a murder of crows, pecked repeatedly for sometimes hours. There are some terrible, indescribable, gruesome ways

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>