Hedwig for Muggles? Owls remain popular pets 20 years after Harry Potter debut
J.K. Rowling may have never intended for owls to become household pets when she gave Harry Potter Hedwig the snowy owl.
Twenty years after the first book 「Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone」 was published, Harry and his friends along with all the fantastic beasts are still well remembered. Some seem to be clinging to the magic world of Harry Potter by keeping an owl as a pet, which has, however, triggered concern.
A recent report from Global Ecology and Conservation indicated that the demand for pet owls on Indonesian markets has spiked sharply in the past two decades. Wildlife researchers found the number of owls for sale in Bali and Java was 13,000 in 2016, but the annual sales were only a few hundred before 2001. Owl sales made up 1.5 percent of all sales in 2016, up from less than 0.1 percent.
Although it’s difficult to prove a direct link the fictional phenomenon to rising owl sales, 「Harry Potter normalized keeping owls as pets,」 Vincent Nijman, a coauthor of the study and a wildlife-trade researcher at Oxford Brookes University, was quoted as saying by Nature.
Owls are called Burung Hantu in Malay but are now colloquially known as Burung Harry Potter, meaning 「Harry Potter birds,」 Nijman said, adding that owls are affordable for almost anybody with a job.
Comparing the owls to cut flowers, Nijman said, 「They are alive and cute when you see them on the market, but realistically they are already dead.」
According to Nature, almost all owls on sales in Indonesia were caught in the wild and Indonesian law forbids the trade of wildlife.
China also bans the sales of owls, which are listed as protected animals, but the bird is no luckier in China than in Indonesia.
Not only featuring Hedwig, pet owls are also popular stars on Chinese social networks, usually for their cute-looking videos – when their wide-open eyes and feathery but stiff bodies indicate fear instead.
On Baidu Tieba, an online forum in China themed on owls, knowhow on caring for a pet owl remain posted at the top of the forum, calling owls 「beautiful but hard to tame.」 One netizen provides instructions on how to properly feed a pet owl raw meat and warned that a large space is needed so they can fly for exercise, adding in large red fonts: 「Owls are protected animals. People who keep one for personal use without approval is at risk for arrest.」
In fact, it is already difficult to find online stores selling owls, but many netizens still claim that pet owls are available online and even in pet shops.
A search on Taobao just yields pages of toys and furnishings only. But the door to the illegal owl trade remains open to people in the know or who can find their way to the hidden gray market on social networking app WeChat.
In 2015, a man was found selling 「cute birds」 on China’s version of Craigslist, 58.com, which turned out to be collared scops owls. The man was placed on a police wanted list for selling protected animals and 58.com removed the post and blocked certain keywords such as 「owls」 and 「cute birds」 to prevent another such occurrence.
愛《哈利·波特》沒毛病，但請放過貓頭鷹吧！
貓頭鷹，指的是鳥類中鴞（xiāo）形目這一肉食性鳥類，多數屬於夜行性猛禽，長得可以說是非常可愛了……
但最近，可愛的貓頭鷹們也面臨了危機。研究結果顯示，近20年來，印尼寵物貓頭鷹的交易數量一度急劇上升：01年之前，每年僅售出百來只，但到了2016年，居然售出13000隻，足足130倍！
這些售賣的貓頭鷹是從哪裡來的呢？它們中的絕大部分都是被非法捕獲的。大量的市場交易，已經致使部分貓頭鷹瀕危。
貓頭鷹很可愛沒錯，但這股盜獵-交易的熱潮並不是一直存在，而是在2001年突然爆發——當年到底發生了什麼？
2001年，是《哈利波特》第一部電影裡上映的日子。
在J. K. 羅琳筆下的魔幻世界裡，充當信使的貓頭鷹各具特色，它們為魔法世界增添了一抹別樣的色彩。而與此同時，貓頭鷹的交易量就開始迅速上漲。
「當你在市場上看到它的時候，它是那麼活潑可愛。但實際上它已經死了……」野生動物研究人員這樣描述他在印尼野生鳥交易場上看到的場景。
貓頭鷹一旦落入寵物販子的手裡，重新野化、回到自然中就成了奢望。人類飼養寵物貓頭鷹的環境，對它們而言相當惡劣，再加上長時間處於應激狀態，疾病、真菌、寄生蟲都無孔不入。就算有幸被救助，也往往難以恢復健康了。更不要提在獵捕、運輸、養殖的過程中死掉的那些個體了。
而《哈利波特》的熱潮，無疑讓非法貓頭鷹交易雪上加霜。
瘋狂的貓頭鷹粉絲們不但願意出錢購買，還有一些無知的哈迷會跑到相關論壇上求購貓頭鷹，這也讓一些商人們看到了機會。在印尼當地，一隻貓頭鷹便宜的只要40人民幣，貴一些的也就200人民幣——可以說是相當划算了，買起來完全無負擔！
然而，這還不算完。大量交易背後，還有大量的遺棄。
貓頭鷹們經歷了路途顛簸、到達買家手裡，就算買家不能提供專業的飼養環境，至少也是錦衣玉食吧？
呵呵，太單純了。事實上，貓頭鷹其實根本不適合家養：它每天要血刺呼啦的吃生肉，撕碎同樣可愛的小倉鼠或是小兔子；還會放肆的隨時上吐下瀉，一天就能把你的屋子弄成垃圾場；而且這貨還一年四季都掉毛，發起情來成宿成宿的叫……
狗要遛，貓得逗，貓頭鷹也需要運動，問題是對貓頭鷹來說，飛才算運動。倉鴞都有40釐米長，海德薇那樣的雪鴞更能長到半米多長，這麼大的鳥撲騰起來一般家裡是容不下的……如果沒地方給它飛呢？那就等著各種爪墊病、畸形、感染找上門來吧！
當盲目的購買者們發現了這些無法彌合的「缺陷」之後，那些可憐的被抓捕過、虐待過的貓頭鷹們，要麼就被遺棄，要麼乾脆就被玩死了。
在麻瓜世界裡，貓頭鷹既不能為巫師們送信，也不會乖乖地任人類愛撫，更沒有魔法逃脫偷獵者的追蹤。它們僅僅是脆弱、獨特而值得尊重的生命，在這個缺少魔法的世界裡靜靜地繁衍生息。
貓頭鷹在絕大多數國家都是受保護的動物，在中國，所有的貓頭鷹都是國家二級保護動物，在無養殖許可證的情況下擅自飼養，會有被警察蜀黍請去喝茶的危險哦。
（來源：果殼網）
Louder voice, broader vision.