Congrats Megan!! Your Highlight has been chosen as the CATCH winner for Shop! You are now in the running to win a trip to Belgium! Thank you for sharing your travel experiences and keep up the good work! There's one week left!

Wow! How exciting!! Thank you so much, Lauren! This is the best news ever (:

Congrats, Megan!

I find this appalling. Usually I'm impressed with the content AFAR chooses to feature but talking about having 'so much fun" in a place of terrible suffering doesn't reflect well on the writer or the magazine. I'm not saying don't go, but go with a eye toward compassion and understanding the culture and why this is there. Educate me and help me understand the complexity of the controversy.

Michael,
I'm curious as to what you find appalling about this image or the sentiments the writer has expressed? Where did you get the impression that this is a place of terrible suffering? I've been to this market as well, and I can tell you from experience that the animals seem to be treated about as well as they might in any pet store in the West. This isn't a tourist market either - this is a market run by, and run for, local Indonesians who are passionate about animals in general, and birds specifically. Raising song birds is an important part of local Javan culture, and from what I've seen at bird competitions (for lack of a better term) the animals are treated very well. I was not under the impression that the animals here were treated in an inhumane manner, or that their keepers lacked compassion. Quite the opposite, and that above all else surprised me (I had heard of this market before visiting, and was skeptical about what I might see).

The writer said "perhaps squirrels shouldn’t be available for purchase and many of the animals could use a larger cage." I doubt there's a pet store/animal market anywhere on the planet where the same cannot be said. Like you I'm not saying go or don't go, and if this were a tourist market or a petting zoo I may be of a different mind on the matter, but why not visit if, as you say, we should "go with a eye toward compassion and understanding the culture and why this is there."

To be honest I have less of a problem with a market like this than I have with walking into an Apple brand store in California. Travel is all about experiencing things we know little about - and sometimes that places us in the midst of controversy (if this is indeed controversial).

A good dialogue, Michael - thank you for bringing up an interesting point with regards to this photo.

I appreciate your thoughts, Flash, but I feel strongly that birds don't belong in cages. I'm not saying this is any better than a US pet shop -- there are deplorable conditions in many US pet shops too. I don't know exactly where the birds in this market come from, but at some point either the birds or their ancestors were taken from the wild. And most birds are made to fly, not to have their wings clipped. Most are very social too and the isolation of cages is cruel. And squirrels should be free to roam in trees.
I think what bothered me most about this post is the flippant attitude of the writer, like the cute little birdies and caged squirrels were there for her amusement. That said, I haven't been to this market so I can't authoritatively evaluate the conditions - and I'm not opposed to raising animals, including birds, for food. But I've seen birds and lots of other animals caged in other Asian markets, like Bangkok's Chatuchak, and the suffering of these animals was heartbreaking.

I felt so sad looking at this shot. What value is there in a bird market?