Want ads

This morning I did something I didn't do in a very long time - I looked at bird want/selling ads.

I'm not sure why I did, I think mostly out of curiosity. It's been well over a year since I looked all on my own (I'm excluding specific links that my mother sent me). Although I've never been quite swayed by those ads (the only bird I got as a result of an ad was Joey, and it wasn't because the ad made it sound like I had to save him, but rather because he was a Red-bellied parrot and at the time I thought he was most likely already sold...), I think with everything that has happened to me last year and the fact that I feel like I'm quite at my limit for parrots right now, I just haven't had the time nor the drive to look.

And I should have kept things that way.

No, I don't have any temptation to bring another bird home. However, looking at those ads made me sad. Birds, young and old, needing a new home, a lot of the time because it appears their owners didn't know what they were getting into. People looking for "free" birds (which always made me weary); people advertising being "rescues" but needing people to give them supplies/money and birds; people looking to make a quick buck off their parrot...

I wasn't surprised though. It was the same type of ads as when I was looking at them more regularly over a year ago. Sadly, things will most likely not change.

I think I'll go back to avoiding those websites - not that I want to ignore the problem, I know it will stick around for a while. People act impulsively, people are greedy. But I think I'll just go back to spending that time with the birds I have, the ones who's lives I have an immediate impact on. The ones that I hope will never have to be advertised on such websites.