Our Better Nature

Photo: members of a ranibow lorikeet flock


I see wild birds every day. All I have to do is look out the window. Crows, sparrows, mockingbirds, and hummingbirds abound. I also try to spend an hour a day among the native species at the beach in Ventura or at Lake Casitas, our local reservoir.

Walking along the shore, looking out to Anacapa and Santa Cruz Islands, I see scores of gulls, terns, sandpipers, pelicans and cormorants. At the lake, there are colonies of black vultures in the eucalyptus trees, redwing blackbirds in the reeds; herons, ducks, grebes, geese and hawks on the water and in the skies.

On the day we brought Shanti home I saw a Great Blue Heron flying westward with a pair of egrets. A moment of great natural beauty. Superstitiously, I took it as a good omen. More profoundly, I took it as an opportunity to ponder the legitimacy of keeping a wild animal as a human being’s companion.

I’ve always had serious reservations about taking an animal from the wild. What was the point? What was the justification? I had no need to own a bird, a gorilla or a tiger. Nature’s not for owning or leasing; nature’s not for sale. The very essence we value in animals is their wildness, their freedom. Sticking a wild bird in a hominid’s house—or worse, in a cage— seemed too much like taxidermy, self-indulgence and pretense.

Parrots—unlike dogs, cats and farm animals—are not domesticated species, bred over the centuries to serve and gratify people. Parrots are still wild— just a generation or two from the forests of Africa.

“I’m not a poodle,” says the ferociously passionate Shanti. The racoons, owls and coyotes in my neighborhood second the motion.

The only justification for taking a parrot from its perfect wilderness, for separating it from its kindred flock, lies in the sanctity of the relationship between parrot and person. The closer the bond, the more we may justify and legitimize our imperfect intrusion on their lives. Failing to love our parrots, then, defiles nature. But we needn’t fail. Our better nature is to love.