Should birds fly indoors?
What about flight for the indoor bird? I think it endangers, rather than improves, a companion bird's ability to survive.

Why? First, a little historical perspective, again based on our European friends' experiences. When I first began working in companion parrot behavior management in the late 1970's, many of the available books showed a preference for allowing pet birds to remain flighted.

However, they were written by Europeans and reflected the way birds were and, to a certain extent, still are, kept in some parts of Europe. British and European aviculturists have a history of bird breeding by landed classes, who traditionally kept groups of birds in outdoor aviaries.

Custom-designed outdoor aviaries can safely accommodate flight. But we in the U.S. have two problems. One is that most of us don't have a piece of property large enough for a roomy flight. Nor do most of us live in a setting in which neighbors would not be bothered by the noise generated by outdoor birds (which are often louder than indoor pets).

Another problem is that since 1998, the U.S. has been affected by the mosquito-born illness West Nile virus, which is expected to appear in all 48 of the contiguous United States in the summer of 2003. Bird owners are being encouraged to keep our birds indoors to protect them from mosquitoes.

All of this combines to mean that parrots in the United States are more likely to occupy human living spaces rather than custom-designed outdoor aviaries. And a flying bird inside the typical American home is not safe.

Pet birds should be clipped, says bird behavior expert Mattie Sue Athan.

When birds live as companions in the home, they are more intimately involved in human lifestyles.  There are often multiple individuals in the home with differing amounts of involvement with the bird.  Spouses, teenagers, children, and other pets come and go.

Ceiling fans, a frequent source of injury or death to flying indoor birds, are common in the U.S.  Cooking and living areas often adjoin, leading to many accidents in which free flying birds are horribly burned.  Kitchen fumes more easily waft into living areas, making polytetrafluorethylene fume deaths common in the U.S.

Drowning in toilets, fountains, aquariums, and even glasses of water are common causes of death among flighted indoor birds in the U.S. 

As companion parrot ownership by ordinary people grew in the United States during the 1980's, the "new" American ways grew in acceptance.  One of those points of view was that in the United States, with our American lifestyle, trimming wing feathers is a safer, more humane way to ensure a companion parrot's survival. 

I respectfully suggest that in human homes, flight is not only unnecessary, it is unsafe and undesirable from both an ecological and a behavioral point of view.

The purpose of flight
There is no argument that a little flying at the beginning of life helps a young parrot to gain coordination and confidence, but once a companion parrot matures, is flight helpful or detrimental to safe and happy adjustment as a companion? 

Unfortunately, one of the most compelling uses of flight involves the fight-or-flight response, an instinctual reaction in which a bird quickly leaves a situation of danger.  A flighted bird cannot help but fly when startled.  This is unsafe in contained areas and fraught with dangers in a typical human home. 

When fear kicks in, birds fly in a panicked state, and even birds that are well-acclimated in a long-time home can suffer accidents that would not have occurred if they did not fly.  In human homes, allowing a bird to fly increases the probability that it will be injured or killed, the opposite of what a survival mechanism is "supposed" to do. 

Those who have not provided veterinary care for birds injured in in-home accidents may be unfamiliar with the many horrible tragedies that can occur to flying birds indoors.  Avian veterinarians, who see devastating injuries on a daily basis, are extremely vocal in pushing companion parrot caretakers not to allow flight in the home, as even older birds that are very familiar with their indoor environment can be killed or maimed when stimulated to fly. 

Consider the case of the yellow-headed Amazon who was startled by roofers in his long time home.  Although he had safely flown around the open, two-and-a-half story living area for more than a dozen years, when a new roof was installed on his house, he was startled and flew quickly up to the skylight - a place where he had never flown before - with such force that he was knocked unconscious.  He fell into a hot tub where he drowned.  

The consequences of flying outdoors
When you don't clip your indoor bird's wings, you leave him vulnerable to escape outdoors. This is especially problematic when flighted companion parrots share quarters with families including children.  Some people can be trained to be careful about the door, others are easily distracted. 

Many, probably most, companion birds can be recovered from accidental introduction into the outdoors.  However, flown away companions are in danger from predators and can pick up diseases outdoors.  In addition, simply being without a regular food and water source can be fatal to a bird that is unaccustomed to foraging, as it nearly was to my own scarlet macaw, whom I rescued.

By the time I was hired by a homeowner's association to capture her, she had been flying free for several weeks. She was severely dehydrated and had "forgotten" how to eat.  In spite of being more than five years old (per her band date), I had to hand feed her for two weeks.

Flight can be left behind, and happily
I asked Dave Flom, who has trained his birds to free-fly indoors at various bird events, whether he thinks flighted birds are happier.

Dave, who owns and trains Samson, the flying hyacinth macaw on the cover of my book, Guide to a Well-Behaved Parrot told me, "I work with both flighted and nonflighted birds and both appear equally happy.  It has been my experience that birds with restricted flight or no flight ability adjust more readily as companion birds."  

I agree with Dave. Adapted or learned behaviors are a major component of avian existence.  As flocking animals, each generation of birds must learn appropriate behaviors in order to survive.  But in addition to learning many behaviors, birds discontinue and "forget" unnecessary ones.  Flight is one of them.

Like any other behavior that is unnecessary for survival, flight can become obsolete or extinct in a species.   The ancestors of the penguin, ostrich, emu - to name but a few species - found survival easier without flight.

Whether birds retain flight as part of their repertory of behaviors depends upon how and where they live.  This is one of the lessons we learned by studying birds in New Zealand, an island ecosystem that developed no mammals until it was invaded by humans.  As we can read in David Attenborough's The Life of Birds, when there were no predators to avoid, many of the birds simply stopped flying.

I believe that a properly accommodated non-flighted companion bird no more misses flight than a penguin or an ostrich misses flight. Presuming that a companion parrot misses flight is sort of like presuming a teenager missed something by not experiencing promiscuous sex.

Some things are better missed.  The teenager might have missed unwanted pregnancy, Hepatitis C, and HIV.  The companion bird might have missed drowning in the toilet, burned off feet, a broken neck, or a lifetime deformity from flying into a ceiling fan. 

Some flighted birds pay a gruesome price.  Flying is a trade-off, with the bird in grave danger and unable to make an informed decision on its own behalf. 

I believe that most companion parrots have a better chance for a long, happy life when we make the decision for them - and decide not to allow flight indoors, and certainly not train them to fly outside. Flight, in these instances, is an unnecessary, obsolete, and dangerous skill. 

Comments about this story? Send a letter to Mailbag.