Oh yes, every single day. That's why I'm doing my best to spread the word and educate every single being I can reach out to, about the sad situation of parrots in captivity. Encouraging adopting rehomes instead of buying babies (and if they buy a baby - not a common species that is already overflowing the market and definitely not a handfed one), for those that actually can take living with parrots. (Very few who are interested in them would be able to care for one for more than a couple of years...)
The last budgies my family had (we've had them since my 'mom' got one in the early seventies) were rehomed to Junsele Djurpark (a Zoo in northern Sweden) in the summer of 2009. They (Hugo and Josefin) were seven and four years old, respectively, and were not very appreciated. I only took care of them for those years because no one else would (they were not mine, legally, I've never owned a budgie).
So they got a much better life there, with a flock.
And what's fun is that several years earlier, before Josefin, we had four budgies - Albin+Lukas, and Hugo+Alva. Alva got killed by a cat, and then Hugo became partner to Albin instead, so Lukas was rehomed to my cousins who had a lonely budgie. Their other budgie died several years later and Lukas was alone again. So on the way with Hugo and Josefin to the Zoo, I picked up Lukas too. He and Hugo, who had been buddies since 2002, recognized each other immediately, while Josefin (who had known Hugo for four years but never been that close to him) stayed out of it.
(The blue-yellow-white one in the foreground is Hugo, the white one behind him is Lukas, and the yellowish green one in the right corner is Josefin.)
And my cockatoos of course, are staying
with the owner of Skansen-Akvariet (one of the most famous zoos in Sweden, specializing in exotic creatures), Jonas Wahlström. They do not live at the zoo like the budgies do up in Junsele, but at his home, since he has lots of parrots (like Hyacinths and black cockatoos) there.
The reasons for not having my cockatoos anymore is a very long story that I don't feel like bringing up here.
Like I've said in another post, I may be just insanely stupid for getting a macaw (boy did they get horribly mad at me at the swedish parrot forums... talking crap about me behind my back, etc.), or I'm right in the assumption that they are no where near as difficult to keep as a couple of white cockatoos (the toos do after all have a very unique temperament among psittacines).
And one personal term for getting a macaw was that I try free flying. I know how risky it is, but I think this species (or another big, loud, colorful bird, like a B&G) is the ideal for free flight, and perhaps I might even become a professional bird handler in the future, but it's too early to tell yet.
In any case, if I was a bird, I would rather live semi-free for ten-twenty years than live eighty years in a cage (because even a house is a cage). I just hope Cirino feels that way too, since I can't ask him.