Autism has effectively been treated by Applied Behavioral Analysis. This story shows the parallels between autism in humans and behavioral issues in parrots. It is my hope that others will study these scientific methods to relieve the suffering of so many parrots and cockatoos in captivity. For more information on these studies please see http://www.thegabrielfoundation.org/friedman.html. Dr. Susan G. Friedman, Ph.D., is a steadfast proponent of changing behavior through facilitation rather than force. Her work in the field is important. She teaches the subject to both caretakers and professionals.
A Doll’s Eyes
If you walked into a home and saw an almost seven-year-old girl being kept in a filthy back room mired in excrement, dressed in a diaper and crawling along the floor you would do something, wouldn’t you? Most of us have a gut reaction to this kind of abuse. We will not allow it. Yet, because few people understand what abuse is to a parrot, we do nothing. It’s not because we don’t care. It is because we don’t know.
A girl baby left alone with almost no attention from anyone is unthinkable. Yet it happened. The girls’ name was Danielle, the place was Plant City. She was the rarest of human children—a feral child. This poor girl was left almost alone for nearly 7 years. When she was taken from her mother by the authorities her room was filthy beyond words, she could not speak, and would not even make eye contact. Her only toys were covered in filth. She moved like a crab instead of walking. Her eyes were dark and distant as if no one lived inside. Today, this girl has been adopted by loving people who have been able to teach her to make sounds, to point to what she wants, and to eat with a spoon. Unfortunately, the human brain becomes nearly hard-wired after the age of 7. Just how far this feral child will progress is unknown. Although she has already exceeded the expectations of experts it is doubtful that Danielle will ever talk. She still seems to have a doll’s eyes.
The girl was abandoned by her mother. Why? Her mother said that she tried to dress her but the girl just took off her clothes anyway. In every case where the mother was questioned she exclaimed that her daughter refused to do what she was asked. Dressing her, teaching her to eat, socializing her just took too much effort. In time, the woman just gave up and left her in a room out of sight where she was not a bother. This happens to parrots all too often. People don't know their special needs and give up in despair.
It is hard to fault those who buy companion birds. No one tells them that they are like monkeys with wings. Few people would buy a monkey. What most people know about birds can be summed up in one sentence, "They are pretty and they talk." When confronted by an intense attitude wielding a beak and a voice like a 747 at takeoff, people get scared. They don't understand birds and in some ways it is harder to understand parrots than it is to learn a foreign language. So, like the girl the parrot goes into a prison where it lives out its life, alone and unwanted—or worse.
There is another parallel. Did you know that we humans and parrots share something special in common? The first seven years for a child and the first five for a large parrot are the formative years; this is called the juvenile dependency period. This is the period where we become hard-wired to our lives. During this time we both learn much of what we need to know to grow into a healthy adult. What the girl learned and the majority of parrots learn is much the same. Parrots are hatched in incubators separated from love from the beginning. Like the girl they are cooped up away from parental care, fed and mostly ignored. Like the girl they do not learn how to forage for food or what it is to be among others of their kind. They learn few social skills and never taste freedom.
Most people abandon their parrots after they reach adulthood. After being abandoned by its flock and frequently the human who they felt was their mate, the seeds of insanity come into full bloom. The issues that appear at that time are tougher to deal with than a child entering puberty. They are tougher because we have never gone through these times ourselves and do not have anything in our past to draw from. There is no substitute for knowledge. With our busy lives consumed by work, family and social pressure few of us take classes and learn about these special creatures.
Danielle was rarely let out of the room and never outside. She moved like a crab; she did not walk like one of us. In effect, she had her wings clipped. Birds routinely have their wings clipped so that they will not fly away. A parrot's defense, contrary to common thought, is not their beak. It is flight. The ability to fly away is their defense against danger. We take away their only natural defense. We have reduced them to crawling when their ancestors owned the sky. Thus handicapped, the beak becomes their only protection. What is it a weapon against?—our ignorance. For the girl there was no escaping her prison, she was surrounded by the shadows in her dark room. Whatever fears she faced there she faced alone. So it is for most parrots and cockatoos.
Living in squalor is no way for a child to live. Parrots are sensitive to disease and much more so than us. Some would say that most cages are clean. If you examine bottom of the cage you might change your mind; often the bars are only cleaned on the upper side. Mold and bacteria are killers for birds and most cages are dangerously dirty compared to where they would live in the wild. There never should be a smell to the bottom of a cage at all. Sometimes corn cob or shavings are used on the bottom of the cage where mold grows day by day. This should never happen.
What of the disgusting toys? Parrots are given toys as useless as the girl’s putrid ones. Parrots and cockatoos need toys they can destroy. It is a need driven by 83 million years of evolution. In the wild they spend some part of every day chewing on something. I have heard someone say "I buy him toys but he just destroys them. I can't afford that!" All I can say is that you can't afford not to give them the toys that they must have to stay sane. The little girl suffered toy depravation, too. Picture the little girl’s toys when you see a dangling piece of plastic chain and a hardwood “toy” in a parrot’s cage. It amounts to the same thing. Having no real toys a child or a bird becomes autistic and disassociated from reality.
Most parrots and cockatoos are flock animals. Just leaving them alone for a weekend can drive them to the brink of insanity. After all, they are never alone in the wild and the wild courses through their veins. Leaving them alone like this is like telling a small child that her parents died in a car crash.
The little girl cannot talk. No one taught her how. What do most people do with birds? We focus on getting them to speak our language but what about theirs? The speech of birds is more body language than vocalization. Sounds are made to get attention or seek out the others of the flock. Once they have your attention then they talk with their bodies. In our case we need to learn their language so we can talk to them. Like chimpanzees that can understand sign language but not speak the spoken word, our birds require us to learn and communicate using their sign language--the language of the spoken gesture. Without that, we cannot communicate with them and we leave them as mute as a feral child.
The authorities took Danielle to safety. She will never be able to be all she could have been but she is loved and she seems to know it. Behind the bars of cages throughout the world stand intelligent eyes waiting for someone to understand. There are few families that would care for a feral child and fewer still that would care for such a bird.
Almost no laws exist to protect parrots and cockatoos. If that feral child had been a bird she would probably still be in that room suffering.
When you see a parrot with a doll’s eyes that shies away from you, that threatens you or cries out shrieking then try to remember this: Danielle did the same and for the same reasons. Like the Phantom of the Opera, a caged and tortured spirit wants to love and be loved. Their sad lives have made them part genius, part romantic and partly insane. Will you shy from their mask of pain or will you embrace them?
On the day you are laid to rest will someone special place a feather on your grave?
The story of the feral girl can be found in the St. Petersburg Times of Jul 31, 2008.
Father Don Scott
www.chloesanctuary.org
(C) Copyright 2008 Don Scott, All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.