I feel that people of my generation (or at least my immediate peer group) think that keeping a bird caged is pretty cruel. YMMV.
Why bother with plebeian canaries when you can buy parrots and other rarities for thousands of bucks.
Because canaries are cheaper, smaller, quieter, less demanding and less destructive than parrots, and don’t live nearly as long.
The Austin Zoo is filled with macaws and cockatoos that people tried to keep as pets. Those people learned the hard way that parrots and their relatives need a LOT of time, attention and mental/emotional stimulation. If they don’t get enough of those things, they become EXTREMLY noisy and start chewing up furniture.
Moreover, a healthy parrot will live almost as long as a healthy human being. If an adult human buys a large parrot, there’s a very good chance the parrot will outlive him.
If it’s true the seed was changed and they don’t sing as much, that’s probably the reason. Their song was the sole reason they were so popular.
I sometimes feel people of your generation and/or peer group are ignorant.
My birds view their cages as their little homes. It’s nothing unusual for me to open their cages in the morning and they’ll hang out in them for hours before deciding to come out. Or they’ll be playing on their play pen (yes, they have play pens for parrots) and they just go into their cage for a nap, then come back out. Hardly a sign that they are suffering or desperate to get out.
Actually, the birds won’t leave me alone - if they had their way they’d live, eat, and sleep on my shoulders. Or my husband’s shoulders. Birds can become as attached to their humans as dogs or cats, perhaps more some in some cases. Nor does that attachment have to interfere with their relations with their own species - our lovebirds raised a family while still continuing to interact with the humans.
For that matter, my husband has managed to charm wild birds in our backyard. Should probably call him the “bird whisperer”.
Anyhow, back to the OP - my local pet stores, both the big chains like PetCo and PetSmart and the small local operations, offer canaries. Both ordinary yellow canaries, and fancy variants of canaries. So there may be a regional aspect to it.
Canaries and finches are small birds and require less room than larger birds in the parrot family. This makes them appealing to people like apartment dwellers.
Googling, I found this industry report:
http://www.birdchannel.com/bird-news/bird-industry-news/latest-on-the-bird-market.aspx
Yes, the bird business is faddish. In 2006 about the same share of Americans owned birds as in 1988 - 6%. But that share can fluctuate. There’s been a trend away from smaller birds such as canaries and finches towards medium sized birds, “…such as conures, macaws and African greys”. That may be driven by price drops in the medium category. Incidentally, the larger the bird, the greater amount of care required generally speaking.
The CDC had a Powerpoint presentation which touched on the demographics of pet owners. Birds in general tend to be favored by retired singles of modest education and income and sedentary lifestyles. Finches and canaries are enjoyed by blue collar and farming middle aged and seniors residents. The Parakeet/Budgie crowd tends to be younger and from working class neighborhoods. Parrots are more likely to be owned by couples in smaller cities and the burbs. Source: Thomas M. Edling DVM, MSpVM, PETCO.
I read that’s because it’s hard for DEA agents to tell them apart from helicopter.
I saw that on Fark - am I bad for thinking about Frisky Dingo and snickering about how we can’t go back to Arizona?
Maybe part of it is that most people will keep one canary and it’s got to be a male (females don’t sing). The only people who keep females are breeders; breeding them requires large cages and much more daily care than “change the newspaper at the bottom, change the water, add feed, stick in a leaf of lettuce.”
If you’re happy with a bird that doesn’t sing, you get something more colorful and trainable on other stuff.
Another factor is that in general people are less likely to get birds than 20 years ago, at least in Spain. After all, if you have a bird and a heart and you go on vacaction, you need to find someone to care for the bird while you’re away: there’s kennels for cats and dogs but not for birds. And the movement in the last 10 years from living in flats to living in houses (same footage but with a staircase and hanky-garden, and neighbors to two sides but neither above nor below) means that people have it easier to keep dogs and cats than before.