Watching Bonnie and Clyde zoom around their home today, you’d never guess they once had to learn how to fly. For years, Creekside Birds, an Oklahoma-based pet trade breeder, trapped the bonded parakeets in a tiny, filthy cage, denying them what birds need most: flight, companionship, play, and room to explore.

Now, Bonnie and Clyde’s lives look very different. Adopted by bird-savvy former PETA staff member Chrissy Matthies, they share their home with fellow rescued parakeets Coconut and Rocky, enjoy a spacious enclosure, and spend hours flying, playing, exploring, and socializing. After years of exploitation, they now get to live on their own terms.

Forced to Produce Chicks for the Pet Trade

Before PETA’s investigator got them out, Creekside Birds used Bonnie and Clyde as breeding machines. Parakeets typically raise just one clutch of chicks each year, with both parents sharing the work of incubating, feeding, and caring for their babies. But Creekside expected Bonnie and Clyde to produce a new clutch of chicks about every other month, only to take away their babies and sell them into the pet trade.

After more than two years of this grueling cycle, Bonnie’s exhausted body couldn’t lay as many eggs as she once did. Creekside planned to sell the pair. Instead, a PETA undercover investigator stepped in and was allowed to rescue them.

What PETA Found at Creekside Birds

During a three-month undercover investigation, a PETA eyewitness documented that Creekside Birds confined approximately 10,000 parakeets inside a metal barn. The breeder crammed them into tiny cages caked with feces and littered with dead chicks. PETA’s investigator found injured and sick birds whom Creekside denied veterinary care.

After our bombshell exposé, the U.S. Department of Agriculture slammed Creekside with thousands of citations for violating the Animal Welfare Act. Federal inspectors noted that Creekside workers said they didn’t even keep records of parakeets who died or whom they killed.

They’re Finally Spreading Their Wings

Parakeets are built to move, fly, and flock—not sit in cages. In nature, they can travel miles each day with their flock to choose what food to eat, stay active, and strengthen social bonds.

Creekside confined Bonnie and Clyde to a cage barely large enough for them to stretch their wings, let alone take flight.

After PETA rescued them, Bonnie and Clyde finally got to do what birds are born to do. At first, they had to build their strength and confidence. Today, they zip from perch to perch, explore their surroundings, and play with feathered friends who also got a second chance.

Pushing for Change Beyond One Breeder

Bonnie and Clyde’s rescue was only the beginning. PETA is pushing pet stores, regulators, and the public to stop treating birds as disposable commodities while continuing to hold Creekside Birds accountable.

Recently, music legend and doting cockatoo guardian Iggy Pop aimed to confront Petco executives at the company’s annual shareholder meeting, demanding to know when the retailer would stop selling birds. PETA supporters have also descended on Petco stores nationwide bearing giant images of parakeets who suffered and died at Creekside Birds. And tens of thousands of compassionate PETA supporters have already urged pet stores to stop selling birds, but our work isn’t over yet.

Help Birds Like Bonnie and Clyde

Every bird is someone. Parakeets are curious, social individuals who form close relationships, solve problems, communicate with one another, and value their freedom. Every bone in their body was formed for them to fly freely. But the pet trade condemns them to lives of deprivation.

Pet stores often market them as “starter pets” and sell them to virtually anyone, even though most purchasers aren’t prepared to meet their complex physical, social, and psychological needs. Birds leave pet stores only to spend years isolated in cramped cages inside homes.

Thanks to PETA’s investigation, Bonnie and Clyde finally got the chance to spread their wings. Together, we can help give other birds that same opportunity.

The post Meet Bonnie and Clyde: Two Parakeets Who Finally Get to Spread Their Wings appeared first on PETA.