Frankenbirds - A thought on Avian "Dark breeds" and their welfare

This is a topic that has rattled around my brain for decades, but beyond passing comment, I've never really discussed it, although for some time now it's been something I wanted to talk about, or at least present a stance on something that most in bird circles seem to show little concern over, which puzzles me, but either way, let's have a try here and see.

Anyone familiar with me will know that in general I have a dislike for colour mutations, on an aesthetic level I have never understood why someone would aspire to take a bird like a Gouldian finch, and selectively inbreed endlessly for it to be pure white. I just cant grasp what it means to have achieved this, but I too accept that if the birds are healthy, and there is no impact on the conservation of the wild species, then what someone does in their shed is no business of mine. It's just not something I can see serious aviculturists doing and amongst the best I have met in pro welfare circles, there seems to be a uniting factor that mutations are generally frowned upon and the wild form is the real jewel to treasure.

But this is not what I want to run through today, because in spite of the often seen conflict over colour mutations, there is a far darker genetic practice lurking in various corners of aviculture; anyone who has even a basic grasp of animal welfare science will be able to identify that there is actually potential for suffering amongst a select handful of what I jokingly call “Dark breeds” of domestic bird that in some cases the production of such defies logic, and it is some of those that I'd like to draw your attention to today.

These Are Gibber Italicus canaries - more on those later. I wonder where these birds are now?

I'd like to point out before we head in, that my observations come from a viewpoint of biology and welfare, and although I have never kept any of these breeds (and would not) there are consistent “rules” at play both biologically and welfare wise that certainly warrant if not outrightly justify an increased focus on welfare in some bird breeds.

The term “Suffering” has always been a contentious one when used casually, but used in a welfare context we can define it loosely as a state of subjective discomfort either physically, psychologically or otherwise. A momentary blip of acute suffering such as a minor injury which will heal and in turn conclude the suffering felt, Vs a permanent, chronic suffrage such as losing a limb are useful to consider here also. It is the later I will focus on as in most cases with genetically imposed suffering the issue is chronic without surgical intervention or euthanasia. In many of the cases put forward there would be no surgical option anyway.

Lets start with some pigeons. Domestic pigeons are one of the most diverse and popular groups of birds kept and the breeds that exist are staggering in number and also in most cases stunningly beautiful. They are all of course a product of selective breeding, much like dogs and chickens, but more often than not they are well adjusted, healthy and behaviourally functioning birds. There are a few exceptions however that cross the line from aesthetic beauty into something else entirely, and in those cases these rules no longer apply.

Tumblers and Rollers – When I was young, I encountered tumbler pigeons and saw their wonderful backflipping behaviours and innocently enough assumed that it was either some sort of trained behaviour or a quirky flight anomaly. Years went by before another keeper told me why tumbler and roller pigeons fly like this. As it turns out, they too have been selectively bred to have mid flight mini “seizures” which disrupt their flight patterns and cause them to fall out of the sky in a downward cascade. If they recover quickly they will realign themselves and continue flight, and if not, they will hit the ground, which is presumably a hazard of the trade. When I discovered this, it suddenly shifted my perspective on what it meant to be a bird keeper and what it meant to selectively breed beyond colour and shape, and as the years went on I encountered more and more of these strange breeds. The idea of the poor Tumbler having a distressing seizure mid flight for the keepers amusement really stuck in my brain.

 

A (more or less) wild Rock dove, ancestor of modern domestic pigeons.

 

A Budapest short faced tumbler - Note the eyes and smaller beak/skull.

         

Another breed of pigeon worth a mention here is the Budapest short faced tumbler. Initially you might think that this breed would fall with the above, but the extremity here is in fact the selection for extreme brachycephaly, much like a pug dog. The beak and skull of this breed has been selected for so intensely that it causes the bird's eyes to bulge out in a quite alarming manner, which puts great stress on the eyes themselves and it is not unknown for them to rupture in some situations. Another side effect of the beak now being so small is not only do they struggle to raise their own young naturally, the young themselves sometimes struggle to hatch as their beak is too weak to break out and they require assistance. For me this is a bird that if natural selection had it's say, would not last five minutes, and it depends entirely on human support to exist at even a basic level.

There are a few other pigeon breeds in a similar camp, Such as the Fantail with a spine constantly crunched into a tight S shape, or the particularly tragic Parlor roller which loses it's ability to fly at 4 months and then spends the rest of it's life seizuring and spinning wildly any time the flight response is triggered (vid link at the end) but the aim here is to highlight a few and then encourage readers to research more if they wish. The bigger question is how are these birds subjectivley perceiving their own experiences.

Shifting on to the passerines, the most famous domestic passerine being the Canary, a popular, usually yellow bird that sings beautifully. Chris? How could anyone do anything too wild with a simple canary? I hear you cry. Well let me introduce you to the Gibber Italicus Canary. There are many types of selectively bred “Bent” canaries that have as suggested, bent spines and hunch over in awkward postures, founded in Italy in the 1800's the Gibber Italicus is bred with the goal of having a spine bent like the number 7. Personally I can't grasp the concept or motivation, but on a very real level, I have a hard time justifying how such a thing could not have some health and chronic welfare impact on these birds knowing how canaries and most passerines function. Indeed breeders of this bird admit that they are very highly strung and fragile to keep.

 

A wild Canary - Dainty, compact and build for flight and survival.

Below - Gibber Italicus - note the deformed spine, vertical legs and permanent hunched posture. This individual is not even an extreme example - I'll let you google them later if your feeling ghoulish. 

 

There are many types of canaries, like Glosters for example where you can assume there may be some compromise in vision, but the “Bent” canaries like Gibber Italicus really sit badly with me.

This last one strays more into general genetic anomalies than a specific breed, but I think it worth including here as the consequences are considered desirable by some, so the same basic issue still applies. The mutation here often presents itself in ducks and geese and is known as “crested” which, if you're into fancy things, looks and sounds fun, but the dark truth behind it is that these crests are in fact produced as a result of a lethal gene which stops the birds skull forming properly, and in turn creates a hole in the back of the skull, allowing fatty tissue to squeeze in and put pressure on the brain. The by-products of this pressure predictably include seizures, motor and nerve issues, deafness and even blindness. Breeding two of these birds together increases chances of lethality as the skull will likely not fuse cohesively at all or the chick will die before it hatches, which might explain why it has never been established fully in a breed as such. With this one I can't help but feel that if nature says “don't” twice... just stop.

 

Wild Greylag goose - Ancestor of most domestic breeds - note smooth aerodynamic skull.

Below - The familair wild mallard - Ancestor of most breeds of domestic duck. 

 

 

A domestic example of the "Crested" mutation, the gene in wild mallards occurs at 0.0001%–0.001%.  

My personal position is that I cannot understand how anybody can be pro subjective welfare AND keeping breeds that likely suffer a great deal as a result of their genetics. There could be an argument that these genetics were locked in generations ago, but then there is still no reason to perpetuate any suffering by breeding more. 

Long story short, It's a rather gloomy topic if you are welfare inclined, and not one that is easily discussed with those who choose to keep and breed these bird breeds/mutations still, as there is a lot of entrenched thinking involved and in the same way that we see folklore husbandry persist, we too see folklore welfare persist... Folklore welfare.... there's a new term... I claim dibs when you see it in a paper somewhere years from now. Nice.

I hope you've enjoyed this little trip into the darker side of bird keeping, I wouldn't include it under the science of aviculture, but it exists, and where avian welfare issues may be present, to some degree we have a duty to explore those topics, even if we are powerless to change them immediately. In the mean time those aware can spread that awareness in the hopes that one day people will move on from this sort of attitude.

I promise my next will be a real upbeat article. I Promise!

Till next time, stay birdy kids.

C.

As a gruesome extra, here's a link to a video that demonstrates the sad lot of the Parlor roller pigeon breed... it may blow your mind. Sorry.

Parlor Roller via Youtube

 

UK Career aviculturists: It's time to dream again...

Hey, as ever, it's been a while since I wrote. I've had opportunities to write not only here, but elsewhere, but my desire to only write when I have something worth sharing has stuck fast. This last year I have seen a wild proliferation of the use of artificial intelligence to write not only online posts, but in some cases whole articles on bird keeping. To some degree this seems to cheapen the experience of reading about our craft. In that sense I have found myself reading more from my physical library, which represents the efforts of real humans, with a real passion, put forward in a time when producing such work required genuine effort and love for what we do.

Over this summer, I've tried to step away from the busy world of online society, whilst still staying in touch as best I can, with others in my life. It's been quiet, and I've had a lot of time to reflect on things in-between work, sleep, and all those other human requirements. The reason behind this is that in the last year, I have found myself increasingly worried about the future of zoo aviculture in the UK (Where I'm based), and not in the usual “not enough new bird keepers” way, but a deeper, indescribable feeling that I cant quite put into words. It feels in some strange way, that large scale, nationwide, progressive and cooperative aviculture is on its way out, there is an unusual sense among many (not only myself, this seems to echo in many conversations I have with other UK keepers) that career zoo aviculturists are a dying breed. Reductions in bird holdings and indeed complete eradication of the taxa in some UK institutions, although well intended through bird flu fears, has denied the zoo aviculturist their natural habitat and in turn denied many future keepers the chance to specialise in this diverse and demanding area.

In some ways it feels like the traditional model of a healthy mix of charismatic avian species and as Gerry would say “little brown jobs” in need of our attention has given way to a model where only the highest priority/popular species have any real hope of long term survival and often in only a small handful of collections whom have either the funds or dedication to work fully with these species, even then, not all are secure by any means.

 

Toucans - A challenge, but 100% worth the effort.

A small example group which are prime candidates in this case are the toucans. Toucans have it all, they are the archetype poster child for charismatic birds, yet in the UK, for as long as I can remember, they have struggled to maintain good populations, through a combination of poor husbandry and lack of awareness, indeed right now this is still the case. I could 100% say with confidence that 15 years ago the UK toucan populations in zoos were doomed. More birds died then of haemochromatosis and acute bacterial infections than were ever bred, and both of the UK collections that did manage to regularly breed them in helpful numbers have now either closed, or abandoned toucans altogether. The situation was dire then, and it continues to be dire now.

How then, I hear you ask, do at least a handful of these species remain on display across the UK? It seems such a prophecy has not come to pass? - Until you dig a little deeper... the beauty of our modern records systems allow us to see a huge amount of data at the touch of a button, and sadly in most cases it seems that the current populations that remain are not descended from the original birds bred 15 years back, those birds are gone, this is a second flush, a population composed of a mix of private acquisitions sourced from presumably mainland Europe, import confiscations and the like. Thus, 15 years from now the same will still be true, UK toucans were unsustainable then, and are unsustainable still, without a great amount of action in the coming years. Where that action comes from, who can say.

This tragedy seems even wilder when you consider that this is an S tier group of birds. These are a holy grail of high brow bird keeping, and whilst they lack the direct endangerment based conservation messaging we see with hornbill species, they are still fantastic in terms of engagement as not only a bird icon everyone knows, but also a flagship species for the areas they inhabit. Indeed if they were easier to keep, breed and house, I'd wager that they would have already secured a permanent, unquestionable seat at the zoo table alongside flamingos, penguins and the like.

Anyway, that's enough toucan talk, but there is a theme here. A couple of years back I wrote an article (will add link at end if I remember) that outlined my vision for the future of zoo bird keeping. I won't dive too deep as you can read it in full if you wish, but the crux was this: To improve engagement and move away from traditional stamp collections of birds, we need to switch it up a gear, create large, interactive walk-through aviaries with modern management facilities that can house and display a huge variety of species, also improving their welfare, whilst holding on to some traditional blocks of flights for the more fine tuned species that don't always play well with others, or need some privacy. This is no brand new vision, just an expansion of the traditional model that has loosely existed for a long time, with the reality of increasing costs and increasing need to improve welfare factored in. There is a financial reality to everything done in a zoo, and to those still out there building new, modern and exciting things for birds, I applaud you, it is no easy feat in this age.

Sadly, in the UK at least, there seems to have been several factors that continue to really blood suck bird keeping, and to be clear, I have no real strong feelings on these, but lay them out here as hard facts that shape our reality. These are firstly the ban of imports of wild birds, this on the whole is a good move, as the numbers of wild birds being stripped out of nature to sustain this trade were shocking. Many younger keepers will not be old enough to remember pre ban days, but I vividly remember visiting one importer as a kid, the air stank of what I now recognise as a mix of baytril and metacam, two drugs that back then were the cure for everything. Species brought in there were unimaginable, 4 species of toucan, handfuls of rollers, bee eaters and whole flocks of parrots. One thing that always stays in my head was a flock of easily over 100 red bellied macaws, fresh in from the wild available for £99 each! I can confidently say that all of those birds are dead now, in spite of being a long lived species in the right hands. It was a shameful time and looking back now, also a shameful waste of the birds that did make it here. Regardless of my opinion on it, the ban had a somewhat chilling effect on the diversity of species, genetic diversity and general numbers of birds seen in UK zoos, this also coupled up with a positive move toward phasing out privately purchasing birds. It is ironic that most of the charismatic zoo bird species that have survived up to now in the UK are descended at some point from these private stocks.

The second main obstacle in the last decade has been fear, fear of avian influenza. In the UK we adopted legislation to protect the farming industry fairly early on and still now that seems to be the main focus of avian influenza related activity. Though zoos now have more of a look in when it comes to this, there are still crippling limitations placed on birds in zoos that do not appear in other taxa with anywhere near the regularity we see in bird based situations. Things like closures, foot dips, extra biosecurity, all great measures in controlling a disease, but ironically these same measures are off putting to those with the investing power when it comes to development in zoos. The question is fair, why invest in a brand new state of the art aviary that may need to be closed half of the year when the same money could create a year round, hassle free experience for guests using another taxa. It's everything that bird keepers hate to hear, and I wish I could say that I haven't seen birds phased out of new projects for this very reason, but it is sadly an increasingly common attitude, even amongst those with historically strong avicultural backgrounds. Whilst by comparison, reptile and amphibian keeping seems to have come on leaps and bounds in the UK, bird keeping has in many ways stagnated horribly.

This brings us onto the third factor: decay. As mentioned earlier, there was a great growth in bird collections in the UK in the last century, mainly between the 1960s and 1990s, before the above factors really started to bite in. Ethics aside, this has left many zoos with ageing infrastructure and a few decades worth of depreciation and underinvestment when it comes to aviaries and facilities. Many of the most notable aviaries were built in this time, but are now in need of urgent repair or replacement to secure their future, and some zoos are just opting to not secure that future. The reduction of birds in UK zoos, sometimes given for various reasons, welfare, ethics etc... are often in truth tied directly to this reality, that the last couple of decades of uncertainty have really battered aviculture here in that sense. The more alarming aspect is also the closure of entire bird collections. One would like to think that in times of economic uncertainty these collections would refine, adapt, evolve. But in truth, what happens is that without love and vision from those with influence, they just die. The last 20 years has seen the evaporation of many once very well respected and seemingly immortal bird collections which contributed heavily to filling the gaps between the big zoo bird populations, whilst being able to also focus on more niche work that otherwise would not happen in bigger, more homogenised collections.

 

The entrance of Leeds Castle Aviary, a wonderful, but now lost collection that was one of the few UK zoos to regularly produce toucan chicks.

All this factored in with the lack of investment into the nuts and bolts of aviculture, the holding and support facilities, the kitchens, all that jazz, has in some areas created an odd desert, where a few aviaries exist in a zoo, but not enough to justify a full department, or the connected conservation efforts that would have come with that in the past. Indeed Curators and team leaders of birds, are an increasing rarity these days by comparison, which also has an impact on the ability of collections to focus development on avian projects and develop strong, dedicated avicultural teams.

It is not of course all hopeless, there are still a few very dedicated bird facilities and several big zoo departments who still bat heavily for birds of all types, but with the decreasing network of bird collections and by extension reduction in bird holding and investing capacity, these collections will have to continue to bear the weight of that torch alone for many years to come, and even to them, this may come at a cost to some of the species housed there.

So I've roughed out here why things seem to feel so flat at the moment, and in my usual way, now we need to discuss some of the ways this could be addressed. I'm going to focus more on keepers here as I've previously written on the wider idea of institutional improvement and I'd be hashing old ground.

I would say that as bird keepers in the UK, there is more of an obligation placed on us now to push, grow and dream than there has ever been. In an environment where there is a lack of real excitement, we must be the excitement, we must bring the ideas forth to push our taxa to the forefront where guests can enjoy them in all of the same beauty and glory that we do. We need to get them out there, to everybody, most importantly the people with control over investment in our facilities, invite them for coffee with your team, show them the birds, allow them to see what is often missed in the offices and boardrooms of the world.

On a serious note, we have to be open to evolution also, we cannot afford to sit back and make demands about what we need whilst offering nothing else in return. Wherever you can do so without welfare compromise, think about experiences you can develop and offer, aviaries that you could adapt to create some form of extra income from the space, find ways to help chip into the bills and make birds more viable and attractive, after all, as we know, we already have a fair few hurdles to start with! It is too often that keepers are able to say where money should be spent, but not offer any ideas about where it could come from.

 

A youngster engages directly with a zoo bird, this could be the moment that creates a new bird lover.

 

If you're lost for ideas, think about what you enjoy so much about your birds, could you offer that in some controlled way to a gaggle of birdwatchers willing to pay for that joy too?

It's also really important to mention that we also have a huge responsibility to grow, in an environment that increasingly offers less opportunity than before. I realise how unhelpful this sounds, but if the remaining career aviculturists in the UK do not put their best foot forward and start climbing the ladders and speaking for birds in the higher levels of zoo society in the future, who exactly can we expect to? How can we hope to justify creating new roles and spaces for birds when there is nobody speaking for them at the table? This is a mighty challenge, but not an insurmountable one.

It's true that the UK zoo aviculture community was much more vibrant and abundant 15 years ago, and that we have seen a slow burn decline of sorts, but I genuinely believe that another kind of scene is possible now that was not possible before. In that previous era, enrichment was a buzz word, training and welfare were things circuses did for amusement and animal rights folks talked about a lot, they were not documentable, learned skill sets that existed in many keepers as they do now. We may have a tougher lot in one respect, but my generation, and the one following it will be the best academically educated generations of aviculturists that have ever existed. We have to weaponise this for the benefit of our birds wherever we can, even if that means sometimes putting on the “showman” hat and finding new ways to help fund the aviaries of tomorrow.

 

A lorikeet aviary at the Indianapolis zoo - granted, the interior could be more complex, but this offers multiple choices to view, enter and presumably also feed the birds if guests wish.

Being utterly honest (which is a good or bad habit of mine, depending on who you ask) things seem difficult in the past few years, but there is a great future possible if we reach out and grasp it, but it will not come without dedication beyond that of average keeper work.

Here's a recap of things we can all work on;

• Grow – Climb the ladder, take on new and productive things, embrace the chaos it brings.

• Speak up – Be a voice not only for your own charges, but also the taxa as a whole.

• Get involved – wherever you can have a say on new ideas and projects, get in there and push birds to the forefront, but just remember to come equipped with some new productive and helpful ideas.

• Don't lean into the idea that closing aviaries long term and creating obstacles is always a good thing for the security of our birds, sometimes it can spell doom for an avairy if no sensible plan can be reached.

• Grants – there are grants out there for many things in the zooniverse, many go unclaimed because nobody puts forward ideas. If you have a vision but large funding seems unlikely, create a smaller proto-vision that is fundable through grant money and demonstrates a concept clearly, this will show your idea is sound in principle and help convince others it is seriously worth a shot. If not, you still have a cool feather for your cap and a boost on your CV.

• Dream big – we can't drum up all of our dreams with the magic money tree, but if a dream is only a copy of something that would be cutting edge in 1985, you're not really helping anybody. Make sure what you work towards is meaningful, contemporary and ideally a step forward in what it is you are doing.

• Stay motivated – let's not kid ourselves, being a keeper is tough, and at times can get you down and tired out. None of us make huge money, but what can serve as our motivation can be an internal drive to innovate... let your hopes and dreams for your birds carry you when your body is to tired to. Keep spinning those plates.

I think that's about all I have to say on this at the moment, granted it is bleak in places, but life is sometimes bleak, and I'd be doing a disservice if I tried to sell you otherwise. The takeaway here is that in the absence and decay of the structures that would support us on a bigger scale, the hope lies with keepers to course correct and steer the future back on track. We have more tools to do so now than ever before.

I'll leave you with a simple mantra that does not come from the animal world, but a world which in some ways echoes many of the tough realities of keeping, the world of fast paced kitchens and gourmet food - from the man who trained both Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal.

“We live in a world of refinement, not invention.” - Marco Pierre White

I hope that has been a thought provoking and artificial intelligence free experience for you, and if you have read this in full, thanks, I'm glad to be bringing you something of use. Below is the link for my previous, markedly more peppy article on the future of zoo aviculture if you are still hungry for more.

Till next time (whenever that is!?)

Stay Birdy,

C.

 

Heres the link to my 2018 article on improving the future of zoo aviculture:

The death of the living stamp collection - An immersive and higher welfare future for all birds.  

If you've made it this far and are still excited to learn more, you might be interested to know that we have set up a facebook group to help push forward thinking birdkeeping and discuss challenges and ideas. You can find it by searching Aviology: aviculture 2.0 on facebook or use the link HERE.

Night of the living... husbandry?! - Zombie practice in aviculture

 

It's been a while, and for regulars here, sorry, life has just been a handful of late.

I was thrilled this week to see a published paper beginning to assess the welfare benefits of circular aviaries, a great idea I've promoted for some time to anyone who will listen, and I'm excited to see what evolves from these works.

 

This week, the Aviology blog passed a major milestone (for a niche aviculture blog anyway!) by passing the 20,000 readers mark. It has taken a few years and the odd cage rattling (mind the pun), but in the main, reception to the blog has been wholly positive, with many new friends being made over the years having got in touch to discuss various topics. The idea that people would take time out of their day to read my work is humbling... Aviology:AI free since 2017 - here's to you and the future brave readers! 

On that note, to celebrate in some small way, I thought it worth putting together a post to talk briefly about Zombie practice, a theme I've touched on every so often but never described. That sounds a bit like folklore husbandry I hear you say, and to some extent that is true, but whilst there is some overlap, there is a critical difference between the two.

Folklore husbandry, a term becoming more popular as the years pass, refers to husbandry practices not rooted in scientific evidence when evidence is available. Snake oil remedies for cage birds is one prime example, many magical tonics are available commercially for a wide range of situations, but seldom do they contain any active ingredients or have any quantifiable veterinary effect. Using these is considered folklore husbandry because it is used on faith alone, with no data or case studies to back it up.

Zombie practice is usually what occurs as a result of folklore husbandry over time OR situations where systems are not updated over decades and their original creators no longer give input or context.

 

Gimme blooood!...

 

First let's chat about the first instance, which is usually seen more in private aviculture because in that situation there is less of a drive for formalised systems and actions are often more spontaneous, and I suppose, of less consequence to the wider world, but of significant consequence to the birds kept. Zombie practice occurs here when folklore husbandry is enstated, but then matched up unquantifiably with some level of success. Others, looking for success with their own species often emulate that practice in the hopes that they will have the same success, if they do, it is assumed to be down to the folklore, if they don't, they continue to cling superstitiously to the folklore in the hopes it will work eventually. Because many folks in private aviculture do not come from a science background, they often miss out on the critical thinking skills that would empower them to ditch the zombie practice and work on real success they can understand, and share with others. Let me be clear here, this is not an assumption about all private aviculturists, I am one myself, but there is a fair sized fringe that do work in this way, they will often refer to themselves as “old school” or similar, which doesn't really mean anything because there were superb private bird keepers in the past, as there are now (I've talked briefly about this somewhere, you will find a link at the end if you're interested).

What harm do these snake oil remedies and folklore practices do you might ask? Well, the scope is too wide to say for the birds, but in honestly, it does a whole lot of harm to the private keeper, it wastes their time, it wastes their money, it robs them of the true joy of success, if these resources are rerouted to meaningful welfare improvements that are observably improving the birds quality of life, the keeper too can thrive.

Secondly I'd like to touch on what some have considered the more insidious of the two, because it often manifests in an organised form and can last decades unchallenged. That is the instance of zombie practice in professional aviculture settings.

I myself have learnt via many mentors and backgrounds, but never myself subscribed to any “school” of thought, to me, the welfare of the bird in question is the “school” and I am both the student and the servant of that “school”. That's my view for what its worth, which will hopefully help you see my perspective.

One theme I have seen over a couple of decades in professional aviculture, at least in the UK, and every so often globally, are these “schools” or “lineages” of keepers, that route their training and discipline back to often one single source, many of those sources being now many decades old themselves, with the original minds and situations behind those practices now long gone and to some degree lacking in connection to modern aviculture. Although well intended, this kind of zombie practice has marched on through several generations of keepers, sometimes watered down each time it is passed on, and the original understanding, situation and any science behind it lost to time. In this sense this zombie practice comes not so much from folklore, but more a loss of definition and relevance over time, like an ever fading photocopy, losing parts of the original every time it is copied.

 

There's a theme to these images, but not really sure what, anyway...

 

The saddest part is that many of the original progenitors of these initial ideas were on the cutting edge at the time and today, would likely have changed their opinion and position in light of what we now know, just as we will find ourselves questioning our practice 10 years away. Yet it's still common to see 50 year old practice held up proudly as some sort of badge of honour, even when science now suggests otherwise. This is zombie practice in action.

A nice metaphor for Zombie practice in this setting is a headless cockroach, you can remove the head from the body and it may continue to live for a time, but it's usefulness becomes limited and it can certainly not be considered a cockroach any longer in the functional sense of the term. When honest critical thinking ceases, the cause is doomed. This is also true in many professional instances; when practice is taught as discipline without understanding, a timestamp is placed on the usefulness of that knowledge.

So, that's that; it might be that you have encountered this sort of situation in your work with birds, and its easy to want to buy into, to want to “belong” to something that will give you security, a group, a society, a particular school, but the truth is that great ideas and revelations come from everywhere, as do bad ideas and bad practice. Be fluid and free.

 

The key to selling snake oil (or mystery bird tonics) is usually confidence... the bad kind.

 

What can I do to resist falling prey to zombie practice I hear you cheer!

Thankfully that part is pretty simple, you just need to;

1. Commit to the idea that a majority of what we should know about birds in human care is currently unknown, speculative or unadressed, and that is OK and normal.

2. Know that your obligation to your birds is to reactively research when presented with a problem rather than delve into the security of how little written information is currently available.

3. Be clear in your objective, don't get caught up in aimless or purposeless pursuits. Write down the problem, then establish what you need to answer the question at hand and seek it, if you cannot find anything helpful within known literature, plan how you might obtain your answer practically via observation or data collection.

4. Strip back anything of no use to that cause. Do not yield to what you would like to be the case even if it has been repeated for many years.

5. Not give up, you might be on to something new and better (or not, but let's say you are).

And to be honest, that's about all I'd like to say about Zombie practice for now that I've not already touched on elsewhere and leave you with a quote from a great scientist and philosopher who whilst they were not talking specifically about our field, their thoughts when asked what two things they would say to the people of the future echo wonderfully with what I m trying to convey here.

“I should like to say two things, one intellectual and one moral.

The intellectual thing I should want to say to them is this: When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely, at what are the facts. That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say.

The moral thing I should wish to say to them is very simple: I should say, love is wise, hatred is foolish. In this world which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way — and if we are to live together and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance, which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.”

~ Bertrand Russell

 

Till next time, stay birdy,

C.

 

If you would like to read another post along these lines, this is a good start...

Unexpected musings on the nature of excellence in Aviculture. 

and you are also interested in the quirky world of circular aviaries, here is an older post that is quite hard to access these days due to the way Blogger is set up.

MMM... DONUTS! - Thinking outside the boxes : Have we overlooked a major new aviary design?

If you've made it this far and are still excited to learn more, you might be interested to know that we have set up a facebook group to help push forward thinking birdkeeping and discuss challenges and ideas. You can find it by searching Aviology: aviculture 2.0 on facebook or use the link HERE.