What's up with the African Grey
I am a 12 year old boy from San Jose, California.
I am asking everyone who comes to this website, to please save the African Gray Parrot from extincton.
This entire exercise began last year in the summer when due to the COVID 19 situation, my family and I decided to get a pet. We decided to get a bird as a pet, as they are extremely intelligent animals. When I started looking into which bird I wanted, I concluded that I wanted an African Gray parrot because they are one of the most intelligent bird species in the world. They can speak a vocabulary of around 1500 words! We all got excited and started looking around for African gray parrot breeders but were shocked to realize there is an illegal trading industry behind importing and exporting these exotic birds, as these birds cannot be bred easily in captivity, that is why they are hunted directly from the wild.
Each bird is being sold for around $5000-$10000 in the US and Europe and since these countries have a great demand for these highly priced birds, the African Gray bird has become almost extinct in the wild. 99% of the African Grays have disappeared from Ghana. I started digging deeper into the facts and was shocked at how under extreme cruel conditions, these birds are being captured and sold in the market.
Habitat
African Greys live in large community settings in their natural habitats. Picking one and shipping them to live a life of loneliness ensures that they die of depression. Much earlier than their long 23-60 year lifespan.
In-human Trafficking
Right from the time they are snatched away from their habitat, the birds are treated badly, and shipped and kept in in-human conditions. By the time they eventually reach their pet owners, they are depressed.
Scams
To top-it all, the number of scams around African Greys on the Internet is just stunning. People will set up fake websites, fake messages on social media, and collect deposits without a delivery.
African grays abused
African Greys are hunted and some are hurt when they are hunted and that is not good because it harms African Grey parrots and 99% of the African Greys are gone in Ghana and will go extinct if they are poached at this rate.
Breeding African Grey parrots in captivity is unsuccessful, so they are hunted directly from the wild. Glue is applied to tree branches and when the birds sit on the trees they get stuck. The poachers then clip their wings and stuff them in crates. Most of the birds don’t make it alive when unpacked.
Each bird can sell for between $5,000 and $10,000 in the US and Europe since these countries have a great demand for these birds. As a result, the African Grey parrot has become almost extinct in the wild. A staggering 99% of the African Greys have disappeared from Ghana.