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Mira Tweti

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Of Parrots and People: The Sometimes Funny, Always Fascinating, and Often Catastrophic Collision of Two Intelligent Species 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by Mira Tweti (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.3 67 ratings

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There are an estimated 50 million parrots in the United States today. Their intelligence and extraordinary personalities make them beloved members of the families that bring them into their homes.

In Of Parrots and People, award-winning journalist and long-time parrot owner Mira Tweti reveals the complex world of parrots-their astonishing intellect, often-intimate relationships with humans, and, unfortunately, the calamitous practices of the bird industry. Delving into the secret world of the global parrot trade, Tweti documents the forces driving these remarkable creatures to the brink of extinction. A critical addition to the popular shelf of books about animals and their behavior, Of Parrots and People is a startling wake-up call in the tradition of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Trenchant analysis woven together with colorful personal narratives from expert scientists, conservationists, eccentric pet owners and amateur animal rescuers reveals the deleterious consequences of mankind's penchant for keeping exotic birds. Tweti (Here, There and Everywhere) begins by debunking the myth of the "bird brain," citing the story of Alex, an African grey research parrot who was proven to have the cognitive skills of a toddler, not uncommon for his breed. The author's research illuminates the staggering variety of the thousands of species of parrots and indicts the individuals who breed, sell and smuggle birds to feed consumer demand. ("Parrots are a luxury item, deprived of liberty purely for human amusement. No one needs to keep a parrot.") She discusses the unacknowledged crisis of a species being hunted to extinction despite the frequency with which they are abandoned by pet owners. Tweti's account is factual and passionate-she likens even the prettiest bird cage to "a slave's shackles"-but she makes it clear where the science ends and her opinions begin. Tweti's work is a valuable resource of astonishing thoroughness, richness and accessibility-despite the occasional ideological inconsistency.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Parrots, along with parakeets, are described here as “compact, short-necked birds with stout hooked bills, noisy and gaudily colored.” Mango, a rainbow lorry, was the author’s decade-long muse and the inspiration for this book. He also was the reason she began writing about birds for newspapers and magazines, why she joined a bird club, and why she spent two years making a documentary film about pet birds. Chapters include such subjects as birds' brains (they are intelligent), their species (there are 350 of them), the crisis of unwanted birds (they make excellent companions, but terrible pets), where they can be seen in North America, the parrot industry in the U.S., the problems facing them in captivity and in the wild, the illegal trapping and wild harvesting of parrots around the world, and smuggling. The author also discusses protecting endangered birds through conservation. A captivating and ingenious examination. --George Cohen

Review

The most important book published on the state of our relationship with parrots."
-Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO, Humane Society of the United States

About the Author

Mira Tweti is an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and The Village Voice, and has helped pass legislation and launch national awareness about parrot issues. Her exposÃ© for the LA Times Magazine on the U.S. parrot trade won an investigative journalism Genesis Award from the Humane Society of the United Sates for significant stories on animal welfare. Tweti is also the author of a parrot- welfare childrenÂs book, Here, There and Everywhere, heralded by Dr. Jane Goodall as Âa masterpiece.Â Tweti lives in Los Angeles with ZaZu, an adopted parrot.

From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Amy Sutherland Parrots are wild animals, but their smarts and chattiness makes that fact an easy one to forget. Throw in their otherworldly beauty, and we humans can't keep our mitts off of them. Two new books detail why we should leave them alone. In Of Parrots and People, journalist Mira Tweti spells out the many evils of the parrot pet trade, while Nancy Ellis-Bell's lively, easy-to-read memoir, The Parrot Who Thought She Was a Dog, recounts how her beloved pet macaw took over her household. But, as is true of so many books on animals, both books are ultimately far more about humans. When we look at the animal kingdom, we too often see a mirror image of ourselves. Despite her book's subtitle, Tweti finds very little that is funny about the collision of humans and parrots. Yes, the birds have wondrous talents, and some of their human "parronts" dote on them madly (for instance, hiring a Santa Claus to pose with them). But the book's true aim is to describe how humans have made them the most at-risk group of birds on the planet (almost one third of the 340 species of parrots are endangered). Tweti lays most of the blame on the pet bird trade, which exploded in this country from the 1970s through the 1990s. Demand for birds gave rise to grim breeding facilities in the United States where birds languish in dark isolation and chicks are snatched from nests too soon. Beyond our borders, trappers pilfer parrots from the jungle and smuggle them to this country, where enforcement of anti-smuggling laws is understaffed. When birds are confiscated, they may linger endlessly in quarantine. Add to that, Tweti finds that relatively few parrots land in homes that are prepared to handle them. Between the screeching, the mess and the biting, parrots are difficult companions. Tweti estimates that the average parrot has seven homes in its first 10 years. A sanctuary director in Wisconsin tells Tweti she gets 50 emails a week from people wanting to surrender their birds. Using a mix of reporting and first-person accounts, Tweti proves an able tour guide on this trail of tears, taking the reader to a private home turned sanctuary, to a federal quarantine station in Otay Mesa, Calif., and to Mexican bird markets where the author see for herself how easy it is to buy an illegal parrot. She also follows star parrot champion and conservationist Charles Munn around Brazil as he scouts for a potential reserve for ultra-rare Lear's macaws. Despite her extensive research, Tweti's book would be far stronger if her journalism were more hard-nosed. Too many anecdotes and statistics go unattributed for an author who is billed as an investigative journalist. And though she does a yeoman's job of describing the breadth of the problem, she offers more finger-wagging than solutions. In the end, her book reads like a fatalistic treatise on what knuckleheads we humans are. Still, Tweti loudly sounds the alarm about the parrot pet trade which, illegal or not, needs immediate attention. While Tweti's book gives us the big picture of the problem with pet parrots, Nancy Ellis-Bell provides the small, up-close view. By describing life with a macaw in detail, The Parrot Who Thought She Was a Dog demonstrates why so many parrot owners give up their birds. Life with Sarah, a one-footed blue and gold macaw, can be charming and fascinating: She learns to bark and becomes extremely attached to Ellis-Bell. But not long after Ellis-Bell adopts Sarah from a sanctuary, she lets the bird out of her cage. Freed, Sarah attacks the dogs and eats their food, pulls the handles off a Hepplewhite credenza and poops all over the place. She screeches, "It's a bummer," so loudly that Ellis-Bell, a book agent, can't hear editors on the phone. Yet Ellis-Bell is smitten, and her love knows few, if any, bounds. She accustoms her wheezy lungs to the bird's voluminous dander and shares her meals -- and even, irresponsibly, a gin and tonic -- with Sarah. But the macaw prevents Ellis-Bell and her husband from having friends over and, eventually, interferes with their sex life. When Ellis-Bell lets Sarah loose in her yard, the reader might wonder who will fly off first, the parrot or the husband. Much of the book is entertaining, though the detailed descriptions of Ellis-Bell's domestic routines become tedious, as does her increasing anthropomorphism. In the end, The Parrot Who Thought She Was a Dog is less about Sarah than about Ellis-Bell, who sees in the parrot a test of how good a mother she is, even of how good a person she is. But until we see animals as they are, cut from the same cloth as us yet entirely different, we'll keep making those mistakes.
Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B001EU9FSS
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books; 1st edition (August 14, 2008)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 14, 2008
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 807 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 368 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #2,508,740 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #659 in Bird Pet Care
- #946 in Animal Care & Pet Essays
- #1,031 in Biological Science of Wildlife

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4.3 67 ratings

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M.J.Lawicki

A Must Read For Bird Lovers Everywhere: Informative, Entertaining, and Thought-Provoking

Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2022

Verified Purchase

Of Parrots and People is an educational, comprehensive, and thought provoking treatise on human-parrot interactions from historical times until the present day. The subtitle aptly describes the thematic content of this work, with less emphasis on any humor associated with parrot-human cultural collisions. The general tone of the book is somber; much more so as the chapters progress and readers are introduced to some very uncomfortable facts regarding the legal—and illegal—parrot trade. Whatever your viewpoint might be on parrots or the pet industry, this book is a must-read in my opinion.

As a parrot owner herself, it is doubtful the authors intent was to belittle or question the integrity of the emotional bonds pet owners may have with their individual birds. From what I understand, the bonds many parrots have with their owners are infinitely deeper than those of more common companion animals like dogs, cats, or even horses. It is their intelligence, long lifespan, and discerning nature that make parrots the best of companions for some. It is these same qualities that make them the worst pets for a majority of owners. It is a sobering statistic that -despite the good intentions of many pet owners- 75 percent of parrots are destined to live a life of neglect or abuse. More surprising still is that the average parrot has seven homes in the first ten years of its life! The takeaway lesson here is that most people are incapable of properly caring for a highly intelligent, demanding, unpredictable, and irascible wild animal. The rewards may be worthwhile for some, but only for those willing to dedicate the considerable time, energy, and necessary resources for their feathered friends.

There are plenty of fascinating anecdotes and a plethora of human-sponsored catastrophes revealed in this chronology. Some chapters were more difficult to read than others. I was profoundly saddened when the narrative began to outline the shocking underside of parrot smuggling. It was equally appalling to learn of abusive parrot breeding practices within the United States and abroad. I was angered~ infuriated!~ to learn of the abuse, maltreatment, and torture of these wondrous creatures within the care of their captors/owners. It makes for some tough, sobering reading. This may not be a feel-good book; nevertheless, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. In my opinion, the unfortunate plight of so many parrots will only be changed through more cultural awareness, habitat preservation in native habitats, and community education.

There are many important takeaways from this work. I will summarize my own below:

-the most important thing to do before purchasing a parrot is to educate yourself,

-consider purchasing a parrot from a reputable rescue organization.

-have a contingency plan beforehand. Remember that unlike cats or dogs, many species of parrots can live for several decades!

-do whatever you can to help prevent parrot destruction in the wild. Hint: forest/land preservation is the key!

-support legal efforts to regulate the aviculture industry. Parrots are not chickens. They are sentient wild animals and deserve better treatment.

Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2008

Verified Purchase

This book is a must read for all who are involved in any way with the "pet" bird industry, from the parokeet owner to the scarce macaw collector.
As a person who shares her home with four Macaws and an African Grey, I was certainly aware of the more uncomfortable moral aspects of captive birds, both from the individual bird's viewpoint and from a collection viewpoint. This book presents all the implications of the exotic bird trade in one package. It is well written and well presented. The facts seem to be accurate and impartial.
The topics included are not comfortable for we exotic bird owners, but this book will make you think about, not just the everyday living conditions of individual exotic birds in captivity, but our nation's and the world's public policies on unrenewable living resources like exotic animals.
Everyone who owns a bird should read this book and everyone who is thinking of acquiring a bird should be required to read this book.

10 people found this helpful

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Elizabeth Pakula

The Inside Buzz on Some of the Smartest Birds in the World

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2009

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I got this book because I am a parrot owner and have also "bird-sat" for a friend of mine who has an African Grey. I also own other birds and was told about this book by my local librarian. I started to read it but took it back to the library because I knew I should add it to my collection on pet birds, especially parrots.
I couldn't read parts of the book without getting extremely upset because of the way some people mistreat their pets, how chain pet stores mistreat their "stock" and how poaching is such a terrible thing. Still, this is an important and informative book and if you already know or have heard about the recent death of Alex, an African Grey who was Dr. Irene Pepperberg's companion and possibly the smartest parrot in captivity, you will want this book. I also recommend "Alex and Me" by Dr. Pepperberg.
If you are thinking about owning a parrot, please read this book and remember a parrot is a lifetime commitment and not some kind of throwaway animal if you get tired of it. And do not purchase a parrot from a chain pet store or from someone at what seems to be a bargain price. It could have been smuggled into this country (many die even before they get here) or could be stolen. One of the saddest memories I have is of a poor miserable parrot in a tiny cage in the hot sun on a Tijuana street. This is why I couldn't read parts of this great book without crying.

5 people found this helpful

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Ghost Pepper

I get the point, but then again...

Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2012

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I had just brought home my sweet little Senegal parrot Bodhi when I came across this book. I have no idea why it has the word "funny" in it, because it is a pretty depressing read. In fact, it made me feel absolutely horrible for buying a parrot. Is that really the author's intent? I understand that there are abuses in the pet industry, and that there needs to be better regulation so that animals are never abused by breeders, pet stores, or owners. But I was hoping for a balanced message so that responsible pet owners like myself got a little credit. Birds are very special pets. When you buy a bird, you are creating a flock. I enjoy being in a flock with my parrot. Even my husband, who isn't a huge bird lover, gets that we are now in a flock and gives little Bodhi TLC every day. My parrot gets love and kisses and treats. In the wild, a parrot is in danger of predators, disease, and starvation. I love being a steward to this lovely little animal. But reading this book made me feel like a bad, bad person for buying a parrot--even one from a reputable bird store. Just too heavy handed, I think. An important message delivered with an iron fist.

6 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Renilda Van Aerden-Nagels

Often sad as these beautiful intelligent parrots should have been left ...

Reviewed in Canada on March 3, 2017

Verified Purchase

An interesting read. Often sad as these beautiful intelligent parrots should have been left in their natural area.

Literature Lady

Buy it. makes you think

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 29, 2012

Verified Purchase

This book is a must if ever you have looked at a parrot in a cage and thought how sad he looks imprisoned in there on the whim of a human. The parrot trade is sad and cruel, and it's time we all admitted this, both to ourselves and to others. It is time to let parrots stay in the wild, where they belong, where they can fly freely, explore, find a mate, reproduce, and do whatever they want. In our homes, they become stressed, sexually frustrated, depressed, miserable and bored, especially if left for hours on their own, as many are, while their humans are out at work. What is the point of having a pet which is meant to fly with a mate, sitting in a cage on its own? Humans can never take the place of a mate and it becomes frustrating for most birds, many of whom start plucking and screaming from the sheer misery of life in captivity, no matter how much we may love them and give them the best of everything. If you have a parrot, try for one moment to put yourself in its place and see if you would like to have its life. I definitely wouldn't, and I'll bet you wouldn't either.

One person found this helpful

~

A real insight to the parrot trade

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 21, 2013

Verified Purchase

Though this book is mainly based in the US the information, the the issues raised, is global. From giving a whole new insight into the amazing intelligence and emotion of parrots, it takes you on a journey through the pet trade from the misguided pet lover, the devoted rescuer, the unregulated breeder, the poor people capturing and smuggling the birds, the profiteering organisers and those in the fight to stop the whole mess. A real must for anyone who cares for birds.

One person found this helpful

Truth-be-told

what it says on the tin!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 16, 2009

Verified Purchase

exactly as it says in the sub title
the horrific truth about some breeders and pet stores is heart breaking to say the least
the truth about WWF and SITES is very depressing
thank goodness mine is a rescue bird the guilt is a bit easier to live with
A real eye opener!
Jan x

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