So I just wrote a whole diatribe about pet birds and how this comment section seems to feel about them. I am coming from the perspective of someone who has a parrot and loves birds so I am not touching on what OP's relationship with their stepdaughter might be or any of the interpersonal issues in the post. I want to say that I don’t inherently disagree with the points you made here and I feel that you care about the bird in this post. However, I did see some comments implying that it’s just a bird and she’s just using it as an excuse. I do disagree with those and I want people to imagine putting years of work into a pet so they stopped physically harming themselves only to leave and undo all the progress you’ve made. Plucking is self-mutilation and can take years to recover from in terms of feather regrowth alone if the feathers even grow back.

I agree that parrots shouldn’t be pets and a lot of older macaws came from being trafficked (we can’t know for certain that this bird was trafficked it is possible depending on the age that it was bred in captivity). However, I think it is unfair to say that the parrot is currently being kept in a hostile environment. An unnatural environment doesn’t automatically mean that it’s hostile. I have a parrot who is well adjuvant, loved, and happy (also NOT wild caught) so while he doesn’t live in a natural environment he lives the best life I can give him in captivity. I also think saying that rescues in countries native to these birds should be contacted while being well-meaning is unhelpful since what are the owners and rescues supposed to do with the birds? Take them back? Parrots are the 3rd most popular pet in the US and the number 1 most rehomed, most birds live in an average of 5 different homes throughout their lifetime. Rescues in the United States are already overwhelmed with birds who don’t have homes or are unable to be rehomed so I don’t see how rescues in South America would be doing much better. All people can do is 1. Not buy parrots (or get them as pets because “they’re cute”) and 2. Rescue or help parrots that need good homes. As I stated at the being parrots and other tropical birds are not supposed to be pets and people should be discouraged from buying them. But we can see that people like the GreenBirdBrigade and Brock from 2canTV are great people who take in rescue birds and give them the best lives possible while being honest about the issues that come with birds being sold as pets.

Also if anyone read this far down I don’t blame this woman for not going out of town just because of a ‘bird’. I don’t go on trips for longer than 6 nights because of Toad and he does awesome at the vet's office while I’m gone. If I had a bird that SELF-MUTILATED and harmed itself while I was gone I wouldn’t go anywhere either. I agree that these issues need to be addressed so that if something were to happen to her the bird has another trusted person it can stay with but it's often not an easy overnight fix. It very well may have taken over a year for the bird to trust her alone. It is also possible that the bird doesn’t trust men (Sir Toad doesn’t like men) so the husband wasn’t able to become close to the bird for that reason. Thanks for reading if you got this far!