Companion animals · room 3 of 6 · 5,000 years

Pet birds

The rock dove, the canary in the mine, the budgerigar, and the parrots of the wild-bird trade.

Dogs Cats Pet birds Reptiles Aquarium fish Bred, sold, kept, adopted, killed

At least 5,000 years ago

The rock dove

historybiology

The rock dove was among the first birds people kept, for food, for messages and for sport. Homing pigeons carried news for empires and armies into the twentieth century. Charles Darwin bred fancy pigeons to show how much selection by people could change an animal in a few generations.

What made a pigeon worth more than a rider on a fast horse?

Sources: Charles Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (1868); Shapiro et al., Genomic diversity and evolution of the head crest in the rock pigeon, Science 339 (2013)

Luc Viatour, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

1500s to 1986

The canary trade

historytrade & commercializationbiology

Wild canaries come from the Canary Islands. Spanish sailors brought them to Europe in the 1500s, and breeders in Germany later produced singing lines sold across the world. British coal miners carried canaries underground to warn of poisonous gas until 1986, when electronic detectors replaced them.

Why would a small bird be a better gas alarm than a person?

Sources: UK National Coal Mining Museum, Canaries in the mines

Illustration: Urbanicity house studio (SI-generated)

1840 to today

The budgerigar

biologyhistorytrade & commercialization

Budgerigars are wild parrots of inland Australia, where flocks are green and yellow. The naturalist John Gould brought live budgies to Britain in 1840, and breeders soon produced blue, white and other color forms. Australia banned the export of wild birds in 1894, so every pet budgie now comes from captive breeding.

Why would a country stop selling its own wild birds?

Sources: Australian Museum, Budgerigar

Parkieten at Dutch Wikipedia, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

1970s to today

Parrots and the wild-bird trade

economicstrade & commercializationbiology

In the 1970s and 1980s millions of wild parrots were trapped for the pet trade, and many died in transit. The U.S. Wild Bird Conservation Act of 1992 stopped most imports of wild-caught birds, and the European Union banned wild bird imports in 2007. Many parrots live 40 to 80 years, so a pet parrot can outlive its owner.

Who should care for a pet that may live longer than the person who bought it?

Sources: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wild Bird Conservation Act of 1992; CITES, Appendices (parrots, Psittaciformes)

Anilsahu84, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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