I recently received a message about a meeting—interestingly, from a friend in Hong Kong—about a first-ever conference in the UK called “Parrot Awareness Week.” The organizers state that their goal is to improve parrot health and welfare. Although it didn’t seem possible for folks outside of the UK to join in the program remotely, held 2-8 July 2023, it is likely that quite a bit of the information will be available online: According to the press release, the daily campaigns on topics such as nutrition, healthcare, and insurance, presented in partnership with UK Pet Food and Petcover Group, will be shared on their Facebook and TikTok accounts, as well as their website.
Now, it isn’t as though we lack numerous avian veterinary and public conferences in the U.S. (for example, there is the annual meeting of the Association of Avian Veterinarians, plus many related regional avian veterinarian conferences; groups like Phoenix Landing have annual wellness retreats; many local bird clubs invite speakers on various welfare topics to their meetings; companies sponsor blogs like this one to educate their clients. And I spend many days each year visiting veterinary schools around the world to educate their students on the cognitive capacities of parrots, a topic that is often barely covered in their standard curriculum).
A Week Of Learning
What makes this UK conference stand out in my mind is that it seems to be trying very hard to get significant national exposure, and its emphasis on the word “awareness”…that is, a strategy to engage with people who at the moment may have little or no idea about the complexities of parrots’ behavior and their needs.
Of course, the UK is a lot smaller than the U.S. and is in a single time zone, so the logistics are going to be quite a bit easier. Not too many folks would, for example, be required to fly long distances to attend, and somehow they’ve kept the registration fee for the final day’s events (a kind of summation) to only ₤8 (about $10 U.S.). So, yes, they have some advantages over folks in the U.S.
But, given the extensiveness of social media, maybe it wouldn’t be too difficult to design something that is advertised and held nationwide in the U.S. I know we are all tired of ZOOM, but it does have some advantages, particularly for a hybrid meeting. Maybe we could design something where veterinarians, behaviorists, and field and lab researchers explain things simply and clearly, not only for parrot owners but also to any of the general public that might be interested.
Parrot Education for the Masses
It is clear that knowledge and interest in parrots have waxed and waned with their presence in film and TV (think of how the cockatoo on the 1970’s TV show Baretta triggered a craze in parrot ownership, or the effects of movies like Paulie, Aladdin, or the Rio series). Even today there are (according to Google) over 20 million pet parrots in the U.S. (everything from budgerigars and small parrotlets to hyacinth macaws and everything in between). Still, when you ask the average person about pets, a typical response involves dogs and/or cats.
Now, I don’t want to be seen as mindlessly promoting parrot ownership (personally, I believe that people really need to take their lifestyles into consideration when deciding if and what type of parrot they should have), but rather as helping make the world aware of what these amazing creatures add to our world in general. Something that reminds not only parrot owners but also the average person of the intelligence and environmental needs of the parrot family.
Furthermore, given that so many parrot species are now endangered or threatened with becoming endangered—even ones that are fairly common in the pet trade such as African grey parrots (CITES I endangered: meaning close to extinction in the wild!)—wouldn’t more awareness about all things psittacine be useful for preserving them and their habitat? Maybe an appropriately designed conference on awareness might do just that! Something to think about…
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