What's more popular than keeping parrots? Getting rid of them, apparently.
The idea of a parrot rescue group in New Mexico may make some people want to squawk. How many people even own a parrot?
According to Anna Sloan, more than you might imagine. It’s true that bird ownership doesn’t touch households with cats and dogs (39 million and 46.3 million respectively, nationwide), but 5.7 million is still a lot of birds, and most of them are some kind of parrot.
And unlike other pets (except tortoises), parrots live so long—30 to 70 years, depending on the species—that even dedicated human owners will die, move, get sick, or otherwise have to give up their bird. More to the point, parrot ownership is a difficult project not for the faint of heart. A barking dog or uppity horse doesn’t begin to compare.
Anna Sloan holds a Blue and Yellow Macaw, one of 40 birds awaiting adoption at her Macaw
and Cockatoo Rescue of New Mexico, in Rio Rancho. Like many rescue birds, this one shows
bare patches where she has plucked her own feathers.
“People don’t anticipate how loud and messy they are, and that they bite,” says Sloan, founder of Macaw and Cockatoo Rescue of New Mexico. We are standing in one of her three aviaries, an outbuilding behind her house in Rio Rancho that is ringing with parrot screams so loud she has to shout everything twice. Luckily, Sloan lives by a highway, and the building is a good distance from the house.
But noise is just one reason that would-be parrot owners end up rethinking their desire to play pirate. Parrots are complex creatures that rival humans in their mental development. “They have the intelligence of a 2- to 5-year-old human,” Sloan says—with a temperament to match. Parrots can be taught to count, do simple math, and express their thoughts in speech. They can also turn into demanding tyrants that scream, bite, and wreck furniture if they don’t get their way.
As a result, parrots often suffer more than other pets from domestication. “They’re too smart to be captive,” Sloan admits. “They probably shouldn’t be pets.” Many are kept in cages that are too small (anything less than 6 to 12 cubic feet), and end up bored, depressed, anxious. A bird that is under-stimulated—or over-stimulated—can “melt down,” and exhibit alarming behaviors like plucking out their feathers.
Indeed, most birds at Sloan’s rescue have bare patches where feathers may never grow back. A few have the pathetic naked look of plucked chickens. Some have been hit, thrown, neglected, and come in aggressive and unable to be handled. With time, re-training, and a high-quality diet, most heal enough to be adopted, though this usually takes at least a year.
“Parrots mimic their environment,” Sloan says, explaining how their history becomes so readily known. “We have a lot that come in with bad attitudes.”
She herself learned the hard way what it means to love a parrot. As a teen who missed having pets, she bought herself a cockatiel for high school graduation. “Immediately I did everything wrong—way overspoiled her, and didn’t realize it’s like taking care of a child. You need boundaries.”
When the bird squawked, she would pick her up. Before long, the cockatiel—a diminutive cousin to the cockatoo—started treating the whole room as her territory. “All the space was her space; she had a meltdown whenever I left,” Sloan explains. “Once you do that, it’s hard to undo it.”
Her parents begged her to get rid of the bird, which screamed whenever its owner left. What she did instead, after some research, was to buy another cockatiel.
That’s not always the right thing to do, Sloan hastens to add—sometimes the birds will kill each other. But in this case it worked. Those cockatiels are still with her, in fact, 12 years later. “It took me about a year, but I fixed her. Once I figured out I could fix her, I was fascinated.”
The next year, she launched her parrot rescue organization, though it did not incorporate as a nonprofit until 2008. Initially she spent her own money to buy birds from disaffected owners and invest in cages, which run $500 to $1,000 each. All told, it cost $10,000 to get the rescue operation going.
Now married with two young children, Sloan enjoys the help of volunteers who come every day to help care for the birds. The rescue sustains itself through adoption fees, which cover things like the $700 a month it costs to feed the 40 birds in her care, a number that has gone as high as 120 birds. Veterinary bills consume what remains, since half the birds come in sick.
A volunteer named Mila has arrived to help with the birds today, her cockatoo perched on her arm. The female Umbrella Cockatoo was adopted from Sloan, and is soon nestled in Mila’s bosom, being kissed, hugged, petted, and loved to a slightly alarming degree. Mila was a dog trainer who fell hard for parrots, then started volunteering at the rescue to learn more about them.
“They aren’t like any mammal,” she says, citing the birds’ extraordinary communication skills. It’s not just mimicry when they talk—parrots can actually learn to express themselves in speech. And unlike dogs, the birds are particular in their affections and take to people immediately or not at all.
“Most cockatoos are not like this,” Mila cautions as the two amplify their lovefest. The appealing white birds often bite, and can be unpredictable. That’s why Sloan encourages adopters to spend time at her rescue and learn about the different parrots first. Each type has its particular talents. African Grays excel at speaking, and can learn thousands of words. Cockatoos can take apart locks and cages with their feet. Macaws like games and are highly sensitive to human routines.
A Sulfur Crested Cockatoo, among the smartest and most unpredictable
members of the showy, popular, but challenging cockatoo family.
In a back bedroom, the “grown-up species”—African Gray and Eclectus parrots—live in their own quiet aviary. They like a serene environment. Not so the cockatoos, who inhabit a room built inside the garage. In the world of parrots, cockatoos are the hard rockers. The shrieking when we enter is ear-splitting, the males bobbing furiously to indicate their territory has been breached.
“Most rescues end up shut down because of the cockatoos,” Sloan yells. “Neighbors complain.” Not surprisingly, they are the parrots most often surrendered.
Families who arrive at Macaw and Cockatoo Rescue hoping to go home with a bird may end up disappointed, but the ones willing to go through the learning process have a good chance of ending up happy pirates. At least, they will have a greater appreciation of what it means, in the tropical bird world, to make a commitment.
“If you didn’t do a good job on your kids,” Sloan concludes, “don’t get a parrot.”