This post is not directly related to
aviculture and could indeed be applied to any discipline involving
wild animals in captivity. Wild animals in "captivity"
being the issue being discussed here.
Just to outline for anyone looking
forward to an ethical lecture, this certainly isn't one and the aim
here is to look briefly at the linguistics of aviculture, not the
ethics themselves.
OK... If you are certain you want to go
with this then lets crack on...
The ethics of keeping animals in
captivity is a minefield for anyone not initiated in animal
cognition, welfare an perception. This can be particularly tricky
with birds as they behave and perceive the world quite differently to
mammals and most other taxa in fact. It's also important that we
remember that like many subjects in which the target's thoughts and
feelings are subjective only to themselves and said subjects have no
means to easily translate them in any human language, everyone and
their grandmother is free to consider and transpose what they imagine
the subject might be feeling. This produces endless (and often
erroneous) well meant guesses and in turn plenty of strong emotional
opinions. What I ask today is that for those without previous
experience but good intentions, is the very outdated language which
we still frequently use within aviculture as a whole helping form
these opinions for them?
You say potato, I say... "in aviculture"
For keepers It's OK to be using casual
terms, they almost slip out on the tongue as we hear them so
regularly but seldom do we consider the very counter productive
implications they make to the general public. This is important,
because as we move forward in developing the standards of aviculture
it's critical that the "lingo" evolves with us. Lets have a
look at some of these terms.
In the first instance there are just
words which outright imply something in their use, here is an
example.
From the dictionary -
Captivity
kapˈtɪvɪti/
noun
noun: captivity
the condition of being imprisoned or
confined.
The definition of a term so casually used is no
longer reflective of the lifestyles of many birds, of course there
are still some situations which could be easily termed captivity,
birds kept in small, non stimulating environments without interaction
from their own species or at least a similar species with which they
can feel comfortable, but these situations in the 21st century are
certainly not the norm and are the result of either outright neglect
to address the individuals needs or general ignorance. On the whole
conditions for birds living in the company of mankind are generally
far removed from the times when the term "captivity" was
coined and almost certainly derived from an anthropomorphic
connection to human imprisonment which again could be misplaced to
begin with.
Once we start to consider that we are entrenched
in outdated language which implies a certain level of inherent
compromise and suffering it is not a surprise that bird keeping has
something of an image problem, one which we could be producing
ourselves. To an outside observer the term "captive"
conjures up visions of oppressive misery which in the majority of
cases is just not there.
Let me take a moment to highlight the fact that in
my opinion some conditions for birds are terrible still and I would
not want the reader to come away with the idea that in my advocacy
for updating language that I presume that all welfare in this era is
acceptable, it is not.
For me, this represents a "captivity" for birds, but is certainly not reflective of how most birds in zoos or private collections live, should we still be using the same term to describe such far removed welfare levels?
So the next time we talk about "captive bred
birds" or "bred in captivity" or "rare in
captivity" we should consider how that may subconsciously
influence the general public's understanding as a whole of what we
do.
An easy interchangeable could be "in
aviculture", "bred in aviculture", "rare in
aviculture" etc...
As well as simple words, some regularly used
phrases could have a double barrelled effect in their use, when used
by professionals they mean something very obvious to us, but to to
the layman there may easily be more wiggle room for interpretation.
The term "IN THE WILD"
So here's a tricky one, whilst it is
understandable that this term is used often, this term
unintentionally implies a welfare baseline for birds to be matched
with the lifestyle they might live in the wild. Life in the wild is
of course filled with danger and birds in captivity have a
considerably easier time if kept stimulated. But we would be foolish
to think that just because a species does something in the wild that
this is the ideal situation for it to be in with us. In the wild
there are predators encountered daily, the foods that are eaten in
the wild are often nothing like the nutrition given in captivity, and
sometimes this is the right thing to do. A prime example would be the
Hyacinth Macaw, in the wild this species exists on an incredibly high
fat diet, one which if fed to a bird in an aviary would sooner or
later result in severe illness or even death. Pretending that our
baseline for welfare is what happens "in the wild" is
embracing madness. The point here is that again, the casual use of
this term in irrelevant contexts could leave the general public with
the idea that an aviculturalists baseline should be identical to how
that species might live in the wild, again an often erroneous
assumption.
We need to ensure that
the connections between the wild, conservation efforts both in and ex
situ are maintained and strengthened, but somehow we must avoid
creating more confusing pre formed perceptions outside of avicultural
circles.
The Cliche - Do nice people even use tiny round victorian cages anymore? I'm not sure.
There are of course some frustrating cliches in pop culture and society in general which do us no favours, including the idea of a caged bird that longs constantly for freedom (usually from a cage that no respectable keeper would even use these days!). Whilst there is little that can be done to remedy this, it is worth an honourable mention even as an example, again it gives the illusion that all birds want to be free when as most keepers over all disciplines will be painfully aware that birds like to be where the food water, safety and shelter is and that escape is usually a fear driven accident rather than a calculated decision.
As versed individuals it's easy to bypass the obvious, but once we start using modern relevant terms as a collective, we may see a positive improvement in society's view of aviculture and its relevance to protecting and increasing numbers of birds in need.
I hope this has been a brief eye opener, have a
think for yourself, I'm certain you can think of other instances
where inappropriate or outdated negative terms are still being used
to no real benefit, maybe think about the implications of our daily
language to those outside of aviculture.
C.
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