Crow in the office

[urbpan]

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This crow was kept illegally as a pet, and confiscated and brought to a wildlife rehabilitator. The rehabber decided the bird was too imprinted to be released and placed it at the educational center where I work. We are trying to get it to the point where teachers can bring it to schools and such, and use it in educational programs. Its flight feathers are damaged, so it can't fly well, but once it molts it will. I brought it into our office for some exercise and "play time."

Comments

[copperwolf.livejournal.com]

Kind of related to above point...

Isn't it difficult to teach school children why wild animals should not be kept as pets, when one's show & tell example is an animal that's too imprinted to be released?
Or to put the question another way: why is an [imprinted] crow an inappropriate pet?

I ask this out of earnest curiousity.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

1. Hopefully not (I don't do the teaching, usually, we have an ed. dept. for that); but I get your point. I hear many children outside the fox exhibit whine "I waaant one!"

I think the message is "It is unfortunate that this animal must live in captivity because some human took it out of the wild." Likewise, our mammals are imprinted individual whose mothers were hit by cars or killed by dogs--human-caused, in other words. We also make it plain that these animals would not survive being released, and that we have a special permit and special training that allows us to keep them.

Our mission is to "Protect the Nature of Massachusetts," so we would be educating the children about habitat protection, for the most part. "Why wild animals should not be kept as pets," no doubt comes up, but it isn't the primary message. We are fortunate in Massachusetts to have the law underscoring the point.

2. Besides being illegal, not much. If I had all the time in the world, I'd be sorely tempted to have a crow as a pet, and it is legal to own exotic crows. But they are heinously messy and destructive, and need a lot of space. Most people would not be able to take proper care of a crow--this one was allegedly rescued from a canary cage.