DistantNews
Support us
🇦🇷 Argentina /Health & Science

The King of Birds: “It Is Not Healthy to Cage Someone You Love”

From Clarín · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Interview Named sources Context piece
  • Ornithologist Samuel “Tito” Narosky, 94, says bird populations in peri-urban areas have recovered as practices such as hunting birds with slingshots and keeping them in cages declined.
  • Narosky recalls campaigning against bird captivity and compares caging a bird to confining a partner who wants to leave.
  • He discusses the bird-identification guide he created with Darío Yzurieta, which has sold more than 100,000 copies.

The morning fog hides the buildings along the avenue, but it cannot hide the birds from Samuel “Tito” Narosky. At 94, the legendary ornithologist still works from a small shop packed with aluminum sheets in Lanús, where he hears the birds singing even when he cannot see them.

Narosky says the thrush is the first bird to sing before dawn. He describes bird song as a sexual call, perhaps an attempt to appear before competing birds, while noting that each species has its own characteristics shaped by evolution.

He has also watched bird life return to peri-urban areas. Thrushes, mockingbirds, horneros, grackles, hummingbirds and benteveos can now be found there, he says. When he was a child, boys commonly carried slingshots or air rifles. Keeping birds in cages was also accepted. Those practices have declined, and Narosky believes people's understanding of life has improved over his long career.

It is not healthy to cage someone you love so they cannot leave.

· Samuel “Tito” NaroskyHe explains his opposition to keeping birds in captivity.

That change was one he actively pursued. He became known for opposing the custom of keeping birds captive, including through his description of the cardinal as “the splendor of Río de la Plata birds and the pain of an undeserved captivity.” The justification was that people wanted birds nearby, but Narosky rejects it: “It is not healthy to cage someone you love so they cannot leave.” He compares the idea to a relationship, saying that if a partner wants to go, the answer is to let them go.

The cardinal appears on the cover of his bird-identification guide for Argentina and Uruguay, first published in 1978. Narosky developed it with Darío Yzurieta after birdwatching courses drew strong interest in the 1970s. They went into the field, described birds and compared their observations with museum specimens and an earlier guide by the Swedish naturalist Claes Christian Olrog. Narosky and Yzurieta's guide has since sold more than 100,000 copies, and they are continuing to work on it.

The splendor of Río de la Plata birds and the pain of an undeserved captivity.

· Samuel “Tito” NaroskyHis description of the cardinal appears in the discussion of his conservation work.
About this summary

Originally published by Clarín in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

More Stories

From Our Blog