July 13, 2011
My daughter Andrea was born in 1990 and was very hyperactive. As she was growing I found that she had a keen interest in pets. I gave thought to having a pet dog or a cat at home as we had sufficient place outside our house. There were some stray dogs in the campus where I worked in Muscat and one of the female dogs had just given birth to a couple of puppies. I waited for some time for the puppies to grow and when they were sufficiently healthy, brought home a cute puppy from the clan which was totally black in colour and my daughter named it 'BLACKY'.
When my son Neil was born, my passion increased to rear some other animals like rabbits and birds and also a small poultry. This I thought for the sake of my children to watch them play as they grew up. The most enjoyable time for my children was watching the love birds singing and flying inside the small but sufficiently spaced cage and also the rabbits running around in the enclosed compound. As months passed by the stray dogs smelt the chickens and rabbits growing in my compound and they became their prey one after the other.
Somehow I could save the love birds as they were more secured in the cage at an elevated place. While I was preparing for my vacation, I didn't know where to keep the birds as I knew no one in the camp would come forward to take care of them as the cage was quite heavy to move from its place. Somehow with no other alternative left, I decided to set the birds free and just before we left to the airport, I opened the cage for the birds to fly off. Least did I think that the birds who were confined to the cage for almost two years would fly off easily, besides they were caged much before I could buy them from the pet shop.
Though some managed to fly some struggled and a couple of them fell on the ground trying to fly. The sight was so pitiful for me that I started crying for my selfish act to capture the speechless birds in the cage. One of the birds I managed to pick and keep on the compound wall helping it to fly. It tried a little but failed and fell on the ground again. After helping them for couple of times, they somehow managed to fly and perched themselves on a nearby tree as they could not fly high immediately. Perhaps they flew off from that tree to a world of their much-awaited freedom even before my flight took off at the airport.
From this I learnt a lesson and decided never to keep A BIRD IN THE CAGE in my life. Keeping a bird in the cage is like putting a person in the prison. A prison is called as detention centre as punishment for people committing crimes. So why should bird be in the prison without committing a crime?
It probably began in the past when man began to understand the beauty of animals. Coupled with his power over them, he decided that he wanted to have the beautiful animals that he had encountered on his hunting trips to be near him. Down the centuries, man has domesticated quite a few animals to serve his needs, and sometimes to serve no need at all. It is one thing to keep an animal nearby to serve one's needs but it is cruel to keep them 'just for fun'. Hence, keeping animals and birds in cages is quite ridiculous if not cruel.
It is most definitely cruel to keep any animal or bird in captivity; worse still, confined in cages. An animal or bird is carefree in its own environment. It knows of no restrictions. It goes about its own business of eating and drinking and reproducing. Even domestic animals would like to walk about and act according to their instincts and desires. Caging them would deprive them of this. How often have we seen caged animals pacing their cages in futile attempts to escape? Can we imagine the frustration that they feel? What do we get in making a creature furious, frustrated and depressed? Yet humans do it all the time. Since we would think it cruel if someone were to cage us, it stands to reason that we should not do it to others, even animals and birds. The sense of justice we hold so dear when it comes to humans should be extended to all living creatures.
Besides being cruel, it serves little purpose to want to cage animals and birds. Wild animals and birds being caged up to serve our egoistic pleasure of power over others and that's about all that we do. Cultivating such natures does not do us any good; actually developing such natures will make us cruel and egoistic. Left in the wild a bird does all sorts of things; when kept in the cage, it just sits there. Granted that birds are beautiful to look at, we cannot observe the bird at its best when it is caged. To watch the bird at its best we should go to its habitat. Caging domestic animals just serves the purpose of controlling them. If we cannot look after them, why acquire them in the first place?
Some years ago when my children were still small, I along with my wife and children visited the exotic bird section of a zoo. There we saw a circular fence, probably 20 feet high and some 60 feet across. It was very odd to us that the fence had no top to it. We observed a huge rare bird over in a far corner. I reasoned that the keepers must have clipped its wings as normally done, so it could not fly away. Then suddenly the bird went into full flight to a tree on the other side of the cage. Obviously I was wrong. The bird's wings were fine. I found a zoo attendant and asked him why the bird didn't fly away. "The reason is very simple," he said. "This bird was raised in captivity. When it was young it was placed in a cage with a top on it. Every time it tried to fly away it would hit the ceiling. Now, the bird never tries to escape. It is convinced the top of the cage is still there and perhaps has no strength anymore."
Here I recollected the fact seeing elephants at circus tents being held by only a small rope tied to either front or rear leg. It is obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from the ropes they are tied to but for some reason, they do not. These huge and magnificent animals just stand where they are. When they are very young and much smaller they use the small size rope to tie and hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.
Finally, we have no right to cage these speechless animal specially birds; we do it because the creatures are powerless to prevent us from confronting them. If we are robbed of such rights, we would rather die than yield. By what right then do we imprison animals and birds without any qualms? Wild animals should be left free in their habitats and domestic animals should be given as much freedom as possible. The only reason for caging birds and animals is when they are a danger to themselves or to others. Nevertheless, wild animals and birds should never be captured in the first place, specially the birds. Let us all give them freedom, for God created them to fly freely.
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