6 malnourished parrots rescued from KC-area home

PLEASANT HILL, Mo. (AP) – Six parrots have been rescued from a trash-filled suburban Kansas City home.

Several of the birds had large bare patches where feathers had been plucked out or chewed off. Veterinarian Julie Burge is treating them with antibiotics. She says the two cockatoos and four macaws are aggressive and will need time to adjust before they can be adopted.

The Kansas City Star (http://bit.ly/Z5y8sA) reports that the parrots had chewed through drywall and electrical wiring at a vacant Pleasant Valley house. Their cages contained piles of waste, and rodent droppings dotted their dirty food dishes.

Burge operates a veterinarian practice and bird rescue operation in Grandview. She previously rescued pets after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the Joplin tornado.

Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

6 malnourished parrots rescued from KC-area home

PLEASANT HILL, Mo. — Six parrots have been rescued from a trash-filled suburban Kansas City home.

Several of the birds had large bare patches where feathers had been plucked out or chewed off. Veterinarian Julie Burge is treating them with antibiotics. She says the two cockatoos and four macaws are aggressive and will need time to adjust before they can be adopted.

The Kansas City Star (http://bit.ly/Z5y8sA) reports that the parrots had chewed through drywall and electrical wiring at a vacant Pleasant Valley house. Their cages contained piles of waste, and rodent droppings dotted their dirty food dishes.

Burge operates a veterinarian practice and bird rescue operation in Grandview. She previously rescued pets after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the Joplin tornado.

Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com

Parrots can be great pets, but make sure to read up first

Posted by Melissa Weinman
on January 28, 2013.

Dunwoody resident Marie Frank with one of her cockatiels

When you ring the doorbell at Marie Frank’s Dunwoody home, she barely cracks the door.

“Come in quickly,” she says, opening the door just enough for you to squeeze through.

Once inside, the reason for her caution is clear. Frank has three pet cockatiels that fly freely about her home.

Dixie perches on the handle of her oven, singing to his reflection in the stainless steel appliance. Lucky hops over to the table where Frank is sitting, curiously inspecting her coffee mug.

Frank said her birds are always entertaining her. But she said most people don’t know what they are getting into when they buy a parrot.

“These are the best pets,” Frank said. “But if you don’t treat them well, they can be your worst nightmare.”

Frank is passionate about teaching people about responsible bird ownership.

Frank said when she got her first gray and yellow cockatiel, Dixie, she assumed it would be happy living in its cage. “I had a 5-year-old son who wanted a parrot,” Frank said. “I think people think – like I did – that you can buy a big cage and look at him because he’s pretty.”

But she soon learned that her bird needed to spend time outside of his cage, flying and interacting with her family.

“Dixie is kind of the one who trained us on how he wanted to be treated,” Frank said. “To treat them properly, you have to give them little or no cage time.”

Since getting her first cockatiel, Frank has rescued three more and has traveled to Arizona to volunteer with a bird rescue sanctuary.

She said there are many things people don’t know about parrots – the family of exotic birds that includes macaws, cockatoos and Amazons.

If birds are bored or unhappy in their cage, they can be very loud and destructive, she said.

Some birds will even pick out their feathers and bite their skin with their beaks if they are confined to a cage.

“People need to know they are social creatures, they do need stimulation, they do need interaction,” Frank said.

Frank said many people give away their parrots, annoyed by the noise the birds make. There are only a few bird rescue groups around the country, and there often isn’t much space.

“The rescues are bursting at the seams. They’re so overcrowded,” Frank said.

One reason those rescues are so crowded: birds have incredibly long life spans.

Smaller parrots like cockatiels can live up to 25 years. But some larger birds, like macaws and African Grey Parrots, have a life span of up to 100 years.

Ron Johnson, owner of Feathered Friends Forever, cares for 1,400 birds at his rescue facility near Augusta.

He said birds come to the rescue from around the country for a variety of reasons. Some have owners who have died, or owners who have moved and can no longer keep them. Some people turn their birds in because they are simply tired of being bitten by the birds or hearing them chirp.

Johnson said the problem is that breeders continue to sell the birds for a large profit.

“Breeders and pet stores don’t care what people buy so long as they collect their money,” Johnson said.

Johnson said someone recently dropped off a bird that was only six months old.

“A breeder convinced this lady that this was a quiet, lovable bird,” Johnson said. “She paid $900 for the bird, $300 for the cage, and had it 48 hours because she couldn’t stand the noise that it made.”

He said it’s important to keep in mind that parrots are wild animals. They still have natural instincts that can make them unfriendly.

“They’re in a sense “domesticated” in that they will take food from your hand and they will talk to you,” Johnson said. “When it’s breeding season, you have Dr. Jekyll.”

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$1500 reward offered in bird thefts

A local bird-rescue organization is offering a $1,500 reward after two birds were stolen from a pet store in Pineville last week.

Employees also plan to review a month’s worth of surveillance footage from the Parrot University shop on South Polk Street to search for other images of the suspects.

Store workers say an Umbrella Cockatoo and a Moluccan Cockatoo were taken from the Pineville parrot store on Nov. 13. Employees said a man and woman were at the store for about an hour before they grabbed the birds from their cage around 6 p.m. and ran.

The store has received a few tips since the theft, including one from South Carolina, but none of the leads have panned out so far, said Karen Cheek Justice, president and founder of Companion Parrots Re-homed.

The group originally offered a $1,000 reward for the birds’ return, but recently decided to increase the offer. “We just feel that’s the only way we’re going to get them back,” Justice said.

The suspects were described as a white man with a goatee, about 5 feet, 10 inches tall, who was wearing a blue shirt and black pants. The other suspect was described as a white woman about 5 feet, 8 eight inches tall. She was last seen wearing a black hat and top with light blue jeans.

Justice said the suspects are believed to have visited Parrot U in the past, so staff are hoping they’ll be able to find other images of the pair in surveillance video from the store.

Justice said one of the birds, Emmy, had been at the shop for two years, while the other, Jasmine, had been there for three.

“We are absolutely adamant that we’re not pressing charges, she said. “We don’t want to cause trouble. We just want these birds back.”

Anyone with information is asked to call Pineville police at 704-889-7867 or Parrot University at 704-889-2325. WCNC-TV contributed

READER SUBMITTED: Connecticut’s Oldest Bird Club Hosts Annual Birdie Bash

Highlighting the event will be opportunities to meet and interact with club members’ exotic birds and to be educated and entertained by two featured guests. At 11 a.m., noted bat authority Gerri Griswold will debunk myths about these misunderstood creatures and offer a rare close encounter with a live bat. At 1 p.m., Anthony DiBella’s live exotic bird show will captivate the audience and provide insight into parrots and their talents.

The Birdie Bash will also feature exhibits, vendors who offer products of interest to bird owners and information about the organization’s adoption program, conservation efforts and upcoming events. Refreshments and fundraiser tickets will be sold. Admission is $3 for adults and free for children under 12; non-members may not bring birds to the event.

The Parrot Club, founded 36 years ago as the Connecticut Association for Aviculture, is a non-profit organization dedicated to education about responsible ownership and care of exotic birds. The club provides educational outreach programs; sponsors field trips; supports the work of bird rescue, breeding and habitat preservation organizations and hosts a variety of speakers and programs during its monthly meetings, held the second Tuesday evening of each month, March through December, at East Hartford’s Veterans Memorial Clubhouse. The club welcomes bird enthusiasts of all ages. Membership information is available at all Parrot Club events.

The Veterans Memorial Clubhouse is located at 100 Sunset Ridge Dr. in East Hartford. For more information about this event, visit the organization’s Web site, http://www.theparrotclub.org.

Bird rescue group founder charged criminally

The future is uncertain for more than 100 exotic birds as the founder of a bird rescue group faces criminal charges.

Deborah Shell, founder of Wings Over the Rainbow, is to appear Tuesday in Kettering Municipal Court for a hearing related to 30 criminal charges of cruelty to animals and torture/mutilation of companion animals, according to court records.

The case stems from the May 11 raid of WOTR’s Moraine facility by the Greater Dayton Humane Society and the Humane Society of the United States. Court records show that 137 parrots and other large exotic birds, as well as bird cages, computers and business records, were seized in the raid.

Humane officials said the raid was ordered following an investigation into the Wings facility, which showed the birds were suffering ill effects from living in unhealthy conditions.

Judge Robert Moore is expected to decide Tuesday whether GDHS gets ownership of the birds, which have been kept at a secret facility since the raid.

Moore had previously set bond at $35,000 to release the birds and ordered that if WOTR was unable to pay the full bond amount by Thursday, the birds would go to the humane society.

Sher Patrick, WOTR board member, said they were only able to raise $2,500, far short of the full bond amount, and they are anxious to see what the judge decides.

“Once the humane society receives ownership, we’ll never see (the birds) again,” said Patrick, who like other WOTR supporters believes Shell is innocent. “She would never in a million years hurt a bird.”

At issue is whether the court can end Shell’s property rights to the birds before the criminal case is decided.

Shell’s attorney, Tara Dancing, filed a memorandum of law late Thursday afternoon arguing that constitutional law does not allow a person’s property rights to be severed without a hearing. Further, Dancing argues in the memo that the birds are evidence in the criminal case and if they are given away that would violate Shell’s constitutional due process rights.

Brian Weltge, humane society executive director and CEO, said his agency’s primary concern is the welfare of the birds.

“If we get custody, like any other animal we try to place, we’ll go through screenings and try to make the best placement for the animal,” Weltge said. “We’ll continue to care for the birds. We felt we acted in (their) best interest.”

Donation helps parrot rescue organization

TOWN OF ALBION (AP) – Drive past Feathered Friends Sanctuary and Rescue with a car window down and you’ll hear the racket from the road.

There’s cackling, cawing, shrieking, wolf whistling – and above that din, a single bird crying: “Chicken! Chicken! Chicken!”

It’s difficult to probe the collective consciousness of more than 100 parrots, but it’s possible they’re rejoicing. After seven years, the sanctuary in rural Albion Township officially belongs to the birds.

This spring, Feathered Friends got a big gift from the Los Angeles-based organization DJT Foundation, an endowment funded by former “Price is Right” game show host and animal activist Bob Barker.

DJT paid off the sanctuary’s mortgage.

Feathered Friends, which is Wisconsin’s only no-kill, nonprofit bird rescue, had been in jeopardy since 2009 after its founder, Sandi Meinholz, became ill with pancreatic cancer and could no longer run the sanctuary, its board members said.

Feathered Friends, which serves as a rescue that cares for and adopts abandoned and abused domesticated parrots and other tropical birds from around the Midwest, was drowning in overhead and had a $250,000 mortgage, board members said.

Meinholz and her husband, Randy Meinholz, bought the shelter property at 1570 County A after running Feathered Friends out of a Madison warehouse for a few years.

Sandi Meinholz died in October 2010, but several months earlier, Roxann Caracristi, Feathered Friends board director, had put out a Mayday for the sanctuary.

She skipped the typical grant application process because the situation was dire.

“I just sent Bob Barker a letter and asked if he wanted to save 100 parrots,” Caracristi said.

The letter worked.

Although it took two years of legal red tape and false starts, Caracristi said DJT donated enough money for the organization to pay off the mortgage on the sanctuary property. Now, it belongs to Feathered Friends.

“It was a miracle because we didn’t know what was going to happen,” Randy Meinholz said.

The sanctuary is home to such birds as Winston, a 7-year-old white umbrella cockatoo.

Winston was brought to Feathered Friends recently from a Humane Society in southern Illinois, where he was turned over by an owner who couldn’t care for him. He tends to be aggressive but has warmed up to a few people, volunteers said.

During a tour of Feathered Friends, Winston leaned toward a Gazette reporter and lifted his wing, letting out a stream of grunts that sounded like a garbled radio broadcast.

“That means he wants to cuddle. He likes you,” volunteer Acacia Haakl said.

There’s no telling how long Winston will be at the sanctuary, but whether it’s three weeks or seven years, Feathered Friends will care for him until they can match him with a suitable owner.

“Finding the right person is what it’s about,” Caracristi said. “The bird really has to choose the right person more than the person choosing the bird.”

No one is paid to take care of the birds at Feathered Friends, which include dozens of varieties of parrots, including large macaws and cockatoos and smaller birds, such as cockatiels and love birds.

The center always is looking for new volunteers, which it trains for several weeks so they can get used to the birds. Some of the birds can be aggressive and loud. Others come to the sanctuary with self-inflicted injuries such as feather plucking, which parrots tend to do when they’re neglected or in distress.

Those birds need extra care and attention, shelter volunteers said.

“There’s no days off. Every day you’ve got to feed, water, clean cages, sweep, care for and play with these birds,” Meinholz said.

Parrots take more attention than a dog or a cat, and they’re as intelligent as a 4-year-old child, Meinholz said.

“It’s like a human adoption, except they live longer than a person,” he said.

Some varieties can live to be 100 years old.

Parrots commonly outlive their owners, and it’s a leading reason for birds being turned over to Feathered Friends. Other owners turn over parrots because they can’t keep up with the cleaning and care or they can’t tolerate the noise the birds can make.

Meinholz said having the mortgage paid off at Feathered Friends has been a relief, although the sanctuary has ongoing monthly needs, most of which are met through donations.

Caracristi said Feathered Friends is crowded enough that it now has a waiting list to take new birds. She said the board would like to add more space and even build a quiet room for the birds.

Meinholz said no matter what the future holds, Feathered Friends always will have a place to care for birds and find permanent homes for them.

“This is truly a place just for these birds, finally – and it will be forever,” he said.

Copyright Associated Press, Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Bird group hires attorney

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By Andy Sedlak,

Staff Writer

Updated 10:19 AM Tuesday, May 15, 2012

MORAINE — An attorney has been hired to respond to allegations that more than
100 birds were living in unfit conditions at Wings Over the Rainbow, a
nonprofit bird rescue organization shut down last week, said the rescue
group’s founder. Roughly 140 parrots, macaws and other exotic birds taken
from Wings Over the Rainbow are at an undisclosed emergency shelter.

The Humane Society of Greater Dayton, along with representatives from the
Humane Society of the United States, executed a search warrant at the
Springboro Pike facility Thursday.

Deborah Shell, the rescue group’s founder, has referred all questions to
Fairborn-based attorney Tara Dancing. On Monday, Dancing said no charges
have been filed against WOTR or Shell.

“I am looking forward to being in court as soon as possible and I hope it will
be within 10 to 14 days,” Dancing said. “At that point, we’ll be showing
that the birds were well cared for.”

Dancing said she will rely on witnesses to defend WOTR.

“There were 10 to 20 people visiting Wings Over the Rainbow (regularly),”
Dancing said. “Some of those people were volunteers that helped feed and
water the birds and cleaned their cages … We will be relying on witnesses
like those to tell the judge what was going on (at WOTR) on a day-to-day
basis.”

Dancing said the organization expects to be in Kettering Municipal Court
within the next two weeks to defend its care of the animals.

Representatives from the Humane Society of Greater Dayton were not available
for comment on Monday.

Heather Sullivan, who was in Moraine last week as a representative of the
Humane Society of the United States, said WOTR “was in very bad condition”
and “the smell was overwhelming.

“The water was dirty,” she said. “Some birds were definitely sick and others
were in mental distress.”

The search warrant was executed after an investigation into complaints that
the birds were kept in unfit living conditions and not being properly looked
after.

Dancing said that there were “legitimate concerns” with the building but the
birds were taken care of. The group has been renting the facility since
2008, and has addressed its landlord about building issues, Dancing said.

There is no mandatory national accreditation for bird sanctuaries, according
to Sullivan.

“We would love for there to be one,” she said, noting that each state, county
and municipality has its own standards.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-6983 or andrew.sedlak@coxinc.com

Letts man helps rescue birds from rescuer

LETTS, Iowa — An area parrot rescue operation has taken some birds under its wings after the former executive director of a bird rescue foundation in Maryland was charged with animal cruelty.

On March 15, Elizabeth Lindenau of The Bailey Foundation, an organization that rescues, rehabilitates and adopts out birds, was arrested and charged with 69 counts of animal cruelty, aggravated animal cruelty and failure to provide for an animal.

According to a story in the Baltimore Sun, 40 animals were found dead inside Lindenau’s home in early January. Police later found Lindenau in another home where she was taking care of numerous cats, dogs and birds. Police seized birds that were from birdmills in Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Mike Hutchison, founder and director of the Letts nonprofit rescue center Iowa Parrot Rescue, was contacted by a volunteer from the Bailey Foundation around the same time that Lindenau was arrested.

The Iowa Parrot Rescue, opened in 1998, shelters, rehabilitates and places parrots in adoptive homes.

Hutchison said he was asked if he would be able to take in some of the birds seized by authorities.

“I took in nine birds,” Hutchison said, including four sun conures, a mitred conure, a goffin cockatoo and three Amazon parrots.

“The three Amazons needed a lot of work,” Hutchison said.

The Amazons were brought into the country after being caught in the wild. Hutchison said the sun conures came as a group, and he doesn’t plan on separating them.

“We have someone (lined up) who is going to take all four,” Hutchison said.

He said the birds came in malnourished.

“They didn’t get enough exercise and weren’t treated well,” Hutchison said.

When he received them, Hutchison placed the birds in his quarantine room. There, they received medical exams and blood work. On April 15, the birds were released from the quarantine room and placed in the bird house with other birds.

He said since he’s taken them in, the conures are doing well, but, “the Amazons are going to need more work.” He said they were housed in a crowded bird mill.

“Two out of the three will be OK, but they’ll need experienced handlers,” Hutchison said. “The third one will have to be a special needs adoption.”

Hutchison said that over the past year, the Iowa Parrot Rescue has become a national refuge for birds. He said he has birds from 23 states that he’s collected from drug seizures, home foreclosures and situations such as the Bailey Foundation. He said he was glad to take them in.

“All these birds have to go somewhere,” Hutchison said. “We’re getting about three times as many birds in the last few years as we used to get.”

Small cages cramp parrots’ style and health

LOS ANGELES —
Mira Tweti does plenty of squawking over the size of parrot cages.

Most, she says, are too small for the colorful birds whose charismatic and intelligent natures make them popular pets.

That’s why the Playa del Rey, Calif., author and journalist is launching a national campaign to encourage parrot owners to swap their standard-size bird cages for larger ones.

Typical bird cages measure 24 inches wide, 16 inches deep and 16 inches high. Parrots need much more than that, Tweti says.

“We recommend a minimum of 32 inches in width, 24 inches in depth and 40 inches in height. And the cage should be three feet off the ground,” she said.

Tweti’s nonprofit Parrot Care Project and Cage xChange Campaign will begin this month at a Santa Monica, Calif., exotic bird shop where free veterinary exams will be available and experts will be on hand to discuss avian nutrition, how to choose the right cage and how to equip it with toys.

Tweti said she hopes to extend the program to 50 cities over the next five years.

Cages should be outfitted with a variety of perches and playthings to stimulate their occupants. Parrots lacking such diversions often pluck their feathers, a habit that is usually impossible to reverse, Tweti said.

“Parrots don’t make good pets,” she said. “It’s the truth – it’s a wild animal kept in a cage. They’re never domesticated. The ideal place for them should be in a rain forest.”

But she acknowledges they make good companions, with their musical warbling and their knack for repeating humans’ phrases. That’s why there are an estimated 30 million of them residing in living rooms in the United States.

Some parrot owners never take their birds out of their cages. Tweti has a photo of one parrot that had grown so large that it would not fit through its cage door. A bird rescue group had to cut the enclosure apart to free it.

Tweti said she acquired her first parrot – which greeted her with “Good morning” and “I love you” – in 1994 from a vendor at the Lotus Festival at Echo Park Lake. The bird died in 2006 from a fungal infection.

After that, she began hunting for new homes for unwanted parrots. “I’ve rescued 85 of them, including two from a meth lab in Washington state. They’re now in the Bronx Zoo,” she said.

Bird experts are bracing for what Tweti characterizes as a “tsunami” of unwanted parrots as baby boomers who may have acquired them 30 years ago downsize to smaller homes or retire and decide to travel.

Releasing parrots into the wild is illegal, although flocks of them can be seen in Temple City, Malibu, areas of Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego.

“Most released parrots won’t survive unless they join a flock. But the flocks don’t take in just any stray parrot,” Tweti said.

Free and discount-priced cages – under $500 each – will be available on the day of the cage exchange, April 29, from noon to 4:30 p.m. at Omar Gonzalez’s exotic bird store at 3301 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica. Similar events will be staged later in the San Fernando Valley, Orange County and San Diego.