I occasionally come on photos and videos of people with "pet" owls or owl cafes.
Owls are beautiful and soft, but they aren't meant to be around us being cuddled or whatever. What is cuddling to us causes anxiety to them. It isn't owl behavior. They tolerate it sort of if they are imprinted, but it makes them more underdeveloped and under equipped to be themselves than it does to make them good company.
Handling birds of prey, a person will get nipped or cut, but these hands are seriously grabbed up and cut, yet in the video clip they still have the owl restrained and continue "playing" with it.
If this hand is any sign of how happy the owls are here, I feel bad for them. If they don't like their handler touching them, I can only imagine how upset they are being touched by strangers all day.
Dogs, cats, and farm type animals have been domesticated and are used to humans to a decent extent. Most animals though will never be domesticated. They want and need to be free.
While I love animals I know that most aren’t okay with being touched or being close to people. It’s part of loving animals is understanding boundaries and how to have a healthy relationship with them. Most people just aren’t raised to properly respect them since they are so used to having dogs who want to be around their owners a lot.
I’ve learned a lot of how to properly respect animals with this one family of robins in my mom’s backyard. They always come back each year and lay eggs in the same nest. That nest being right on one of the porch lights. So we keep an eye on them around the time we know they will have babies. Just check once in a while to see if the babies are all there or will be getting ready to take flight for the first time. Want to make sure that if one falls that our dogs don’t get to it. And that we don’t disturb them when they taking care of their young.
With my cats I always give them a part of the house that it their space. I don’t go there much so they know it’s safe for them to be there when they need a break. I keep my room as a space that they don’t get to visit much. The rest of the house is safe game though for me or them to be in whenever. If I had to say why my cats love me so much it’s because I understand how to give them their space when stressed.
It feels like a relatively recent thing that people treat animals like they are independent creatures with agency of their own.
Also like you mentioned, the animals we are personally familiar with are largely domesticated ones, and we're less and less familiar with animals in their natural states.
It sounds like you have a great understanding though. My cats definitely had times they wanted to be alone, so it's good you provide that for yours. They're more than capable of finding us again when they feel like having company.