Bird Keeping since the beginning – The Ancient Aviculture

A look at bird keepers in history

Peafowl were some of the types of bird species brougth to ancient Egyptian pharaohs by the Phoenicians.

The Pet Of Royalty
There has been an interest in keeping birds for thousands of years. For example, I find it interesting that Ancient Phoenicians brought peafowl to the Pharaohs of Egypt and that King Solomon owned some as well. During the reign of Alexander the Great, it was a crime to kill a peafowl, yet during the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, they were served as food. The first white peafowl mutation occurred in England in the 1700s.

There have even been pet birds in the White House. Theodore Roosevelt had a blue-and-gold macaw as a pet, and I’ve seen pictures of Roosevelt’s young son with what appears to be a hyacinth macaw on his shoulder.

Long before Teddy and family, Thomas Jefferson kept a number of pets; his favorites were mocking birds. He kept four in the President’s House, and they were allowed their freedom when he was home alone. When his term in office ended, he took them with him to Monticello and retirement. His favorite was named, appropriately, Dick.

During the Kennedy years, Caroline had pet ducks that roamed the White House lawns. Even George Bush pardoned the Thanksgiving turkey and allowed it to wander the grounds for a time.

Probably the first bird breeders or aviculturists were the people that bred gamecocks for fighting. Evidence in China points to its existence there in 517 BC, and it’s thought to have its origins in ancient Persia 6,000 years ago. Although it is a practice I find repugnant, in earlier times it was the “Sport of Kings,” finding favor in Europe and with the royal families of England. It was banned in England in 1834. Even some of our United States presidents bred gamecocks for fighting, including the father of our country, George Washington. Others, including Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, did as well.

Archaeologists have determined that several of the Native American tribes of the Southwest kept parrots and macaws as early as 300 AD. The Hohokam of the area, which now includes much of Arizona and New Mexico, not only traded with their southern neighbors for feathers, but there is evidence from bones found in excavations that they also kept parrots in captivity.

It’s quite apparent that avi “culture” has been around for a long, long time. Let’s get ready for some explorations of our own.