The trade in exotic birds including parrots, cockatoos and macaws involves significant welfare problems at every stage from wild capture through transport to captive keeping.
The exotic bird trade causes welfare harms that begin with violent capture — wild parrots caught in nets, from nests, or by glue traps — and continue through transport conditions that kill the majority of birds taken from the wild. Even birds that survive to retail are often traumatized, poorly socialized, and destined for inadequate captive conditions. The EU import ban has reduced but not eliminated wild-caught bird entry. Captive-bred parrots avoid capture trauma but still face the systematic welfare failure of species with enormous behavioral needs kept in inadequate conditions. The African grey parrot's endangered status from trapping illustrates the conservation dimension of this welfare crisis.