I can appreciate your opinion, but I've learned to not be scared of natural behavior. If you noticed, my pond is only four foot deep and has no cover. Most folks chime in with the fear of leaping. The scare of the loss of a beloved fish. I get it, but after over a year in there, I have not had even one close call... I even feed my smallest Silver with a metal pole and have reinforced her leaving the water to retrieve food. It seems to me that most people have no true faith in these ancient hunters. They were on this planet for millions of years before we earned our thumb parts. I'll leave you with this... Most predators play a roll of elliminating the sick and injured of the species they hunt. If there had been any question to the reason for the bird's death, i.e. poison or disease, I never would have risked it. But I have been rescuing animals for 20 years, and I know it was a broken neck that took the life of that beautiful bird. Short of ingesting an unnatural (man made) substance, what risk is there? If these creatures are nature's clean up crew and balance maintainers, what risk is there in allowing a captive-raised wild animal the joys his wild relatives enjoy?
