Ending the need for rescue
Although many rehabbers have made a life out of helping parrots, they work just as diligently at making their services obsolete.

One important tool in the fight to improve the lives of birds is education. In between feeding and cleaning, most rescuers can be found at local schools, scout meetings and civic functions talking about parrots and showing off ones they've brought along to demonstrate how well-behaved, charming and intelligent a bird can be.

Visitors stroll through a 9,000 -square-foot aviary at the Foundation Dutch Parrot Refuge, one of the largest parrot sanctuaries in the world. The Refuge can more than double the number of residents to 5,000, if necessary.

When not preaching to potential owners, rescuers try to patch shaky existing relationships. If they can successfully counsel an unhappy owner, a parrot may be able to remain with the human it has bonded with, a happy ending. Unfortunately, it rarely works out that way.

"Nine point five times out of 10, by the time someone has contacted MAARS to surrender, their minds are made up to 'get rid of the bird,' said Eileen McCarthy. "It's amazing what people tell themselves about what is 'best for the bird.'"

A simple change often can alleviate an untenable situation, says McCarthy. She remembers how after listening to one woman in a busy household complain about her "loud, nippy conure," she realized that the bird was not getting enough sleep.

"The bird was just plain tired. I recommended that she get a sleeping cage for her bird and put it someplace where he would be able to get some rest. It turned out to be in a very large walk-in closet with a window. This worked perfectly. But that is definitely the exception."

Other rehabbers, such as Providence House Avian Rescue & Support, keep birds and people together by helping ill or elderly owners take care of their demanding pet. Sharon Coughlin and her daughter, Christina, bring food, clean cages, play with the bird and provide transportation to the vet.

Baby boom
Along with education, many rescuers call for slowing the pace of parrot breeding. It is a controversial solution no one is quite sure how to implement, especially since reliable numbers on how many birds are produced now are nonexistent.

However, if something is not done to stop mass production of chicks such as that believed to be underway at bird-food maker Kaytee, the unwanted bird population will only grow larger, say some rehabbers.

"The issue is not whether there are enough homes," says Stewart Metz, an endocrinologist who recently left medicine to join the parrot-welfare effort.

Metz chairs the steering committee for the newly formed World Parrot Welfare Alliance, the first worldwide association of rescue groups, veterinarians and others concerned about the treatment of parrots. "The issue is whether there are enough responsible owners.

Stewart Metz of the World Parrot Welfare Alliance, sidelined on a cockatoo-watching trip to Australia by a petting-zoo koala.

"Every new bird that is bred may destroy the security and home of another bird. The decision to purchase a hand-raised chick means that some other wonderful bird needing a new home will not be adopted."

Production breeding lowers prices on birds to discount levels, says Metz, which in turn encourages people to think of a parrot as a throwaway pet not deserving of veterinary care.

It may also result in unweaned handfed baby birds being turned over to inexperienced pet shop employees, who in turn sell the fragile creatures to uninformed buyers.

"It's horrifying," says Metz. "Even more so is their lack of remorse that these chicks may be [inadvertently] tortured or killed by a buyer who was told how 'easy' weaning a chick is."

The less obvious result of production breeding are young parrots who have not been handled enough to make good pets, says The Gabriel Foundation's Julie Murad. Although babies may arrive in a pet shop well fed, they may later exhibit problems associated with poor parenting.

"Early socialization is critical to the success of a parrot," says Murad. "That consists of what their relationship is to the 'flock,' and how to entertain themselves. You take a bird and raise it in a sterile environment in an incubator or in a plastic tub, with maybe a stuffed toy if you're lucky, and those birds are getting none of the survival skills, just the nutrition.

"It's a wire-monkey thing," says Murad, referring to the famous 1960s experiment in which young rhesus monkeys were given surrogate mothers made of chicken-wire to test a parent's effect on emotional development. The animals later exhibited bizarre behaviors, including increased aggression, and made poor parents themselves.

Working together
Considering the probability that the need for bird sanctuaries will continue, some rehabbers say the next logical step is getting mainstream humane organizations involved.

FosterParrots' Marc Johnson is in negotiation with the Massachusetts SPCA to help him expand his current facility from a two story barn to three free-flight aviaries designed for African, south American and Asia-oriented species of parrots. He believes it would be the first joint effort between a parrot rehabilitator and the SPCA.

"I wrote them a letter and said 'Hey, I'm providing a service that you guys will be providing in the future if we don't. At a minimum, there are opportunities here for MSPCA interns and law enforcement officers to learn about birds and what conditions constitute psychological abuse."

Joint efforts would also help some parrot welfare workers rest easier, knowing that after they are gone, their long-lived residents will be cared for.

Others already have contingency plans for this inevitability all sewn up. Sideline sources of income, including her BirdBrain store, and young board members poised to take the reins will keep The Gabriel Foundation running indefinitely, predicts Murad.

A new way of thinking
In the meantime, the fate of pet parrots will not improve until people fundamentally change the way they regard birds, say rehabilitators.

Requiring expensive permits might convince potential owners that caring for a large bird is a big responsibility, suggests Kim Noble. "That alone would cut down on the demand for the birds and the supply will follow."

The most sensible thing to do, especially with the largest birds such as macaws and cockatoos, would be to allow parrots to live naturally in the wild, the way nature intended, says FosterParrots' Marc Johnson, who compares trying to keep a parrot for a pet to taming a primate.

"A lot of people would enjoy having a chimpanzee for a pet, but we know we can't possibly provide an animal like that with everything it needs," he says. "The same is true of parrots, except people don't realize this."

Van Meegen agrees. "People tend to forget that they are dealing with an intelligent animal which requires a lot of attention. After all they are just like little children."

However, owning and breeding parrots, a pastime as ancient as recorded history, is not likely to go away. Until conditions improve for birds, the kind-hearted people of parrot rescue will continue to toil on behalf of their favorite creatures.

"Parrot voices are not heard," states LARRA's Bockenhauer. "You never see their pictures in shelter advertisements, only dogs and cats. But I think awareness is increasing. I would love to see avian foundations set up in every town and city, just the same as humane societies. This is the future and where it is headed."

All photographs in this story courtesy of those pictured or related organizations.
ParrotChronicles.com

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