Last Updated on by Mitch Rezman
The following was part of an answer to the following Quora question.
“What would be a bird’s reaction if we tied a helium balloon to their legs (that would make them float)? What about a bat? How would they adapt? QUESTION DETAILS IN COMMENTS”
At some point in the very short response I saw these words
“Someday, I’ll tell you about the time I duct taped his feet to the kitchen floor to prevent him from chasing mine”.
Full text of my Quora (now deleted) comment:
Are you freakin’ kidding me?
That’s one of the dumbest and most dangerous things that I’ve heard.
First of all the bird could’ve easily broken a toe, an ankle or leg, especially if it panicked trying to get released.
The most outrageous thing is that you intentionally introduced an adhesive substrate on an animal with feathers.
What if the bird ripped off the duct tape and it ended up adhering to it’s body?
What if the bird freaked out about being “bound” with the errant duct tape?
Now you have to traumatize the bird twice. If you don’t have personal lubricant you use some sort of cooking oil like olive oil or peanut oil to remove the adhesive object and then traumatized the bird a second time by using dish soap like Dawn to remove the oil.
This of course is after you restrain the bird with a towel so you can remove the sticky tape.
If towels are not thought of as friendly you have re-traumatized your bird three times.
Adhesive substrates – think fly ribbons, adhesive rodent traps, and things like duct tape can be removed in one step using personal lubricant because the bird cleans itself after the removal of the adhesive surface via preening.
People respect you for your answers about the bird Mr. K, this was a terrible, hurtful idea to give people.
As for the balloon thing, I can sit here and spell out a dozen scenarios ending with bird injuries.
We try to teach enrichment and you are playing human pranks on unsuspecting and innocent animals – shame on you.
Mr K PUT AN INNOCENT ANIMAL AT SERIOUS PHYSICAL RISK – TWICE
He made the incidents worse by making them seem funny.
In most states, he violated animal abuse law.
From Quora Moderation (who deleted my comment).
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Rick K replied (now also deleted) to my comment on “My wife is going to burn in hell for tormenting our cockatoo….”:
Mitch, take a breath, you’re blowing this way out of proportion.
I would never do anything to harm one of my birds.
Let me repeat the operative word. Never!
I was right there on the floor next to him.
There’s no way he could have broken a toe because the tape was not on that securely.
I also know my bird well enough to know that he would not have panicked it in a situation like that.
As for the adhesive, it was only placed over the toes and nowhere near the legs or body.
As for being traumatized, we can put a nix on that as he ran out of the room singing.
Okay, look. I could go on and on addressing your issue point-by-point, but the bottom line here is, I’ve had this bird for 36 years. I know him. I know he reacts.
.
I know how he thinks. I would never do anything to harm him
PERIOD!
And, as for judging me and my situation when in fact you don’t actually know what is going on, the shame is on you!
Too late
I posted a subsequent comment to the same Quora question:
Mr K PUT AN INNOCENT ANIMAL AT SERIOUS PHYSICAL RISK – TWICE
He made the incidents worse by making them seem funny giving a very wrong idea to people who now may try to duct tape a pet birds feet to the ground.
In most states, he violated animal abuse law.
He would be fined in every EU country
In Germany, all animals would be removed from his home according to Ann Castro, one of our blog contributors and Germany’s only consultant to the Tierschutzverein (animal protection union).
I’ve researched and published 1.25 million words on more than 1000 blog posts regarding pet bird care.
Quora is passively approving animal cruelty and abuse by allowing this article to remain on the site.
Conclusion:
Mr. K can defend himself all he wants.
You can’t tell the world you are an expert in keeping parrots while at the same time leading people to believe it’s okay to duct tape ANY birds feet to the floor!
I get between 8000 and 10,000 views a month on Quora.
Much like Facebook, I’m done.
I will use Quora questions to quilt answers that help people better keep birds in their homes.
This is just one more case of social media running off the rails IMHO
Please feel free to add your thoughts to the question on Quora
written by mitch rezman
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ABS314
23 Sep 2018I was briefly a wildlife/bird “expert” commentator on Quora myself, but left after I quickly realized it was a wide-spread forum for idiots. Yes, of course there were some legitimate questions but nothing these people couldn’t have Googled for themselves. Not only stupid but LAZY.
I appreciate how you responded to that moron and that you came to the same conclusion about Quora.
losninos
23 Sep 2018Quora is interesting not so much for the answers as for the stupidest questions sometimes. Case in point….
Robert Morgan
23 Sep 2018Totally unbelievable.
ABS314
24 Sep 2018The level of willful ignorance despite more knowledge at our fingertips is frightening, and growing every day.
Robert Morgan
24 Sep 2018Agreed. And such wilful ignorance is every bit as bad as deliberate cruelty.
ABS314
24 Sep 2018Absolutely.
Robert Morgan
28 Sep 2018If Mr K’s response on Quora is concerned with the provision of ‘advice’, then we are in trouble. This is not ‘advice’ as I know it; if it is, then clearly the dictionary definition of ‘advice’ needs to be changed. I would argue that there is a very strong case for Quora to be taken down.
WindyCityParrot
30 Sep 2018agreed
diamondg52
24 Sep 2018I was also admonished by quora for my response to this post. I recall that I ended up calling him a cruel moron or something to that effect.