The One in the Cage

I was sitting on my screened-in porch watching the squirrels and the rabbits and the birds in my yard and thinking, I am the one in the cage. My husband and I spend a considerable amount of time in the nice weather sitting on our porch, reading, talking, or eating dinner. We are enclosed by the screens while wildlife enjoys the greenery all around us. Similarly, in Florida, we have a comfortable back porch that overlooks a small lake. We enjoy watching the water birds that visit the area: pelicans, herons, ibises, wood storks, and Muscovy ducks among others.

Recently in our local paper, there has been a great deal of flap about a woman who rescued a house finch as a nestling. She fed the finch and put it in a make-shift incubator. Eventually it grew and thrived and became quite attached to her. She also became attached to the finch as a pet, and credited the little bird for helping her through a bad patch in her life. When an article touting the “miracle bird” appeared in the news, wildlife officials went to the woman’s house and confiscated the bird because it is illegal to contain wildlife. Many felt it was sad that this woman was made an example to others. After all the publicity, allowing her to keep a house finch in captivity would set a bad precedent I suppose. I returned to the online article of the "miracle bird." After I watched a short video of the woman with the house finch, her three exotic birds, and various other pets, I didn’t feel as sorry for her.

I have always felt that birds and fish should be free. Dogs can be walked or may enjoy the outdoors in a fenced-in backyard. Cats have the run of the house, and in a quiet neighborhood may also roam outside. A case could be made that aquariums and aviaries in zoos are educational. Also, some people cannot keep cats or dogs in small places where a bird in a cage or a fish in a tank would be doable.

But what is the point of being a bird if you cannot fly? Birds love to perch on low limbs of trees, protected from hawks and other prey, waiting to glide over to a feeder or a bird bath, or a garden filled with worms. They swoop and chase each other, bicker, fight, and mate. Recently two large, noisy, black crows invaded our yard, and I watched amazed as about 20 smaller birds banded together and chased the crows away. I like to think that we have resident robins in our yard who, like us, migrate to warmer climates in the winter. The handsome cardinals and bright goldfinches appear and disappear. Hummingbirds occasionally show up at the feeder I keep filled for them and are gone in an instant. They are free and probably quite happy.

What is the point of being a fish if you cannot swim freely? The coral reefs of Jamaica are one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen with schools of brightly colored tropical fish darting about. My daughter once kept three pond koi in a five-gallon tank in her bedroom. I found it very depressing to look at them in their tiny environment. It seems that they found it depressing too, and one day we found one that had jumped out in an apparent escape attempt and died. Or perhaps he just committed suicide in desperation. We quickly took the other two back to our neighbor’s koi pond.

So I’m the one sitting in my cage observing the world of nature around me, but I am free to go at anytime—into my house, out for a walk or a drive, to another country. Birds and fish should be free too, even the inappropriately named house finch.