When the Cage Becomes a Home For a harmless Creature

Their colorful feathers littered the ground. We picked some of them up, we stepped on some. They made different sounds that announced their presence. When we looked up, we saw them in their numbers looking down at us and hopping from one tree branch to another. Their presence always made our time in the forest worthwhile. But recently what we enjoy most has become what we hankered for but can’t get. The scarlet macaws are now an endangered species.

What happened to the scarlet macaws? What happened to the lovely creatures that make the forest lively and desirous to visit? A caged scarlet macaw is a crying one. A sold scarlet macaw is a lost and sad one.

The scarlet macaws are loquacious birds that have their space in the natural environment. A space that offers them a place to live freely and express their creative gift with their peculiar voice. They know how to live until humans start to force a new lifestyle on them. A new lifestyle that has denied them what every creature enjoys most. Freedom!

The scarlet macaws have become endangered no thanks to human abuse. The macaws don’t like to be caged yet humans keep them in cages. They’re not commodities to make money from yet humans poach them for pecuniary rewards. Stealing a life to give yourself money is causing a lacuna in the natural environment. A vacuum that nothing else can fill.

The macaws prefer to have trees, branches, and leaves as their rooftop and not aluminum roofs. They want to feel the warmth of sunlight in the morning. They want the rain to provide them with water to drink while resting on the trees. They want the rain to occasionally wash their beautiful feathers so they can glitter on.

They can’t stretch their wings and fly high anymore because a cage has now become their home. A home they were forced to accept. The forest is their home. That’s where their voices go high several times in a day to announce their presence. That’s where their feathers litter to the joy of their many admirers.

They want you to admire them from a distance. They want you to take their pictures and keep them in the right places so that humans will know where to find them. They want you to hear them talk and natter about anything each time you visit their natural habitat. They don’t want you to capture them and cage them because when you do that, they stop being the energetic bird that graced the forest and becomes enfeebled birds with zero joy in life.

Their habitats are almost empty. Their beautiful feathers don’t litter around in the Belize forest anymore. Their voice is gone and their companionship is gone as well. The forest dwellers cry in silence because there are no scarlet macaws to entertain them with different sounds. The forest dwellers weep in silence because life doesn’t feel the same without the macaws. The trees mourn their loss because they can’t get to inhabit their wonderful friends anymore.

The macaws don’t like your home because they come from a beautiful home where they live abundantly. They don’t want your food because they have it in abundance in their real home. They don’t like to be caged because they’re harmless creatures. They dislike being captured and sold because they’re lovely creatures that beautify life and are not a commodity to make money from.

The forest is empty without them. Their fellow animals need them back. They have a space to occupy in the Belizian forest. Their voices will feel a void in the Belizian forest. The trees need their legs on them. The grass needs its feathers to rest on them.

The scarlet macaws were almost everywhere in the forests of Central and South America until humans began to chase them out of their natural habitats. Free them from your homes. Release them back to the forest to feed on the right meal and make their home large and fun as it once was before they started being forced to live with humans.

Some friendships last longer because of distance. Let the macaws be your friend from afar. Let them entertain you with their lovely voices each time you visit the forest. Let their hospitable manners remind you of the gains of sustaining the forest.

If you keep them with you, they cease being what they are meant to be. They become forced pets for humans. They become enslaved because of their beauty, charm, and uniqueness. You can love them from afar. You can help stop poachers. You can change their sad story to a nice story by returning them to the forest.

Let the macaws be. Let their feathers power them higher than the trees. Let their voices sing the trees and animals to sleep at dusk. Let it also wake them at dawn. If the macaws don’t return to the forest, the forest won’t ever be the same again. Their absence will be felt. It’d be lonely, and empty.