SMOKING MAY BE BAD FOR YOU – BUT IT IS FAR WORSE FOR YOUR BIRDS!
We are all aware of the health hazards to our own lives of tobacco smoking, and how even passive smoking (inhalation of smoke from someone else in the same room) can be damaging to babies or children. Yet how many people realise that such tobacco smoke is even more dangerous to pet birds?
Sixty or seventy years ago almost every adult smoked cigarettes or pipes as
a matter of course: it was accepted as the norm, and no health problems were
imagined. However, long before that time, it was well recognised that birds
were ultra-sensitive to the presence of noxious gases in the atmosphere.
This fact was utilised in the employment of canaries down coal-mines, as sentinels to detect methane and carbon monoxide. These gases are potentially poisonous to humans, but long before they built up in concentrations sufficient to damage miners, the canaries would breathe in small amounts and rapidly die. Thus the mine-workers would hopefully have sufficient time to get out before they too succumbed.
This susceptibility to inhaled toxins is a consequence of the unique and efficient respiratory system of birds. Each breath of inhaled air is passed twice through the lungs, and the gaseous exchange mechanism in the blood vessels is ultra-effective, thus they are able to draw more oxygen out of the air (essential for their high metabolic rate) than can mammals. However, this efficiency is not confined to oxygen – any other material in the inspired air is equally effectively absorbed.
Thus diverse materials such as scented candles or air-fresheners, paint fumes, decorating dust, feather dust, strong perfumes, and of course overheated Teflon fumes, will all adversely affect birds. The latter particularly will kill birds within minutes.
The hobby of bird-keeping has existed for decades, thus developing alongside the smoking culture. However, while many public places (restaurants, cinemas, transport etc.) are now designated as non-smoking zones as we have become aware of the health hazards of cigarette smoke, it is still difficult to persuade visitors to bird shows that the smoke they are exhaling is potentially more damaging to the birds they have come to see than it is to themselves!
As an avian veterinary clinician I see this damage manifest in two ways. The first is a result of the atmospheric chemicals on the outside of the bird. If you have ever walked into the home of a heavy smoker, and seen the wallpaper, paintwork, and net curtains stained yellow with nicotine, you will appreciate how this pollutant will also settle on birds’ plumage.
Pet birds living in such a home will have feathers that are dull and dark, often feeling greasy to the touch. Their normal attempts to preen and keep the feathers in good order will be in vain, and they will end up over-preening and plucking themselves in attempts to get rid of the noxious deposit. Many cases of feather-plucking parrots we see are the direct result of cigarette smoking in the home.
The nicotine that is inevitably swallowed in the preening process will poison the bird, leading to digestive malfunction and nervous signs. Birds that are tame and are handled frequently by the nicotine-stained fingers of their smoking owners will not only have permanently dirty plumage, but the chemical will often act as a direct skin irritant. These birds will develop a dermatitis on their legs and feet.
The second manifestation of tobacco smoking damage in birds is the internal result of the inhaled smoke and its chemical contents. The tars, nicotine, and hydrocarbons contained in the smoke will settle in the lungs and air-sacs of the bird, with exactly the same effects as they do in humans. Blood pressure will rise, lungs will function with reduced efficiency, and the heart will become damaged by the toxins and the extra work it has to perform.
This was no better illustrated than by a post-mortem examination I carried out some years ago on a much-loved Amazon parrot. “Popeye” was a mature Double Yellow Headed Amazon (Amazona ochrocephala tresmariae) of some 35 years, and a wonderful character.
He had an extensive vocabulary of words, but also sounds such as telephone and door bells, laughing and crying, coughing and sneezing. Unlike many talking birds, he loved an audience, and would go through his repertoire to order. His owner for the last five years of his life was a lovely lady who used Popeye as entertainment at childrens’ parties, where he was always a great hit because of his mimicry and guaranteed performance.
Mrs Hooper was understandably devastated when one day Popeye suddenly fell off his perch and died, with no previous signs of illness. Because of the unexpectedness of this event, and because she had other birds in the house, Mrs Hooper rightly decided to have me carry out a post-mortem examination on herbird.
All his air-sac membranes (which should be thin and transparent) were thickened and cloudy, and dotted with black spots of soot. The lungs were congested, and also filled with black spots. This is known as anthracosis, and is the result of accumulation of hydrocarbon particles from cigarette smoke in the respiratory system. (Topical note: this has nothing to do with ANTHRAX, but comes from the same root as ANTHRACITE, and derives from the Greek word for coal.)
In addition, the major vessels leading from the heart were yellow and thickened with fatty deposits, known as atherosclerosis. This obviously has the effect of reducing the diameter and elasticity of these arteries, thus increasing the load on the heart. This pathology is the direct result of the inhalation of tobacco smoke, and Popeye ultimately died of heart failure because of the long-term damage sustained in this way.
Mrs Hooper was devastated: she and her family were confirmed non-smokers, how could this have happened? As I have said, Popeye was owned by this family for the last five years only of his life.
Questioning revealed that his previous owner had owned a pub, and for the first thirty years of his life, Popeye had lived in the public bar! He was thus subject to passive smoking on a grand scale, with the unfortunate result described. Although he had lived latterly in a clean environment, the damage to his system was already done, with irreversible and fatal consequences.
So,
BE WARNED – smoking is not only bad for you, it is even worse for your
bird. Pet birds exposed to tobacco fumes will suffer skin and feather problems,
and eventually damage to heart and respiratory system. Air filters, ionisers
or smoking in another room will all help the situation, but better still –
DON’T DO IT!!
© Alan K Jones 2001
(Mrs
Hooper and Popeye are obviously not the real names of the client and pet
involved)
Reprinted with the kind permission of Alan K Jones - Avian Vet
Website: http://www.birdvet.co.uk