The parrot trade — legal and illegal — causes significant individual welfare harm through capture, transport, and inappropriate captive conditions.
Wild-caught parrots suffer extreme welfare costs during capture through nets, clipping primary feathers, and transport in small boxes. Survivors arrive at destination stressed, dehydrated, and often injured. The scale of mortality means that for every parrot that reaches a pet shop, multiple died in capture and transit. Even captive-bred parrots face the fundamental challenge that no domesticated parrot genetics exist — all remain essentially wild birds in captive settings.