For hundreds of years, humans have captured and caged birds in order to enjoy their beauty and listen to their songs. Parrots, with their beautiful multi-colored feathers, have been particularly affected. Now, the majority of parrot species are endangered in the wild due to a combination of poaching and habitat destruction. Due to the complex role parrots play in their native habitat’s ecosystem, their demise has led to an imbalance in nature and helped to decimate rain forests in Central and South America. Parrots serve, unfortunately, as a beautiful microcosm of human destruction of the planet.
Some countries have banned the import of endangered parrots, yet they are still sold openly in third-world markets and smuggled clandestinely into developed countries, ranking second only to drugs in popularity. Their ban has led to another problem: unscrupulous breeders who cage then in darkness for their entire lives, using them only as breeding machines. It is estimated that there are 11 million pet parrots in the US alone. Most of them spend their entire life span (80-100 years) in cages.
FreeFlight is a 50-minute documentary about parrots, the problems they face both in captivity and in the wild, and the people who are trying to change human perceptions about these complicated birds