The Oasis Sanctuary, LTD - Flocking together

Flocking together

Photos by Ron Medvescek / Staff
Ruby grabs the finger of Sybil Erdan, director of The Oasis, while Jordie comes in for a landing. The center is one of the largest bird havens in the nation.

T.J. Georgitso, the sactuary's associate director, tries not to ruffle any feathers with Scooter, left, and Paco.

Photos by Ron Medvescek / Staff
Founded in 1997, The Oasis is accredited by the two leading organizations that sanction animal havens.

Rory is a self-plucked blue-and-gold macaw. Birds under extreme duress often mutilate themselves, according to sanctuary workers.

IF YOU WANT
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE OASIS SANCTUARY:
* The Oasis Sanctuary does not allow casual visitors. Too many strangers stress the birds, and sanctuaries are a frequent target of thieves who know that their portable residents can fetch several hundred to even thousands of dollars on the open market.
But you can see more, and meet more birds at The Oasis' Web site: You can write to The Oasis Sanctuary at P.O. Box 30502 Phoenix, AZ, 85046-0502 or call its business office at 1-602-863-1543.
The nonprofit Oasis Sanctuary Foundation Ltd. is primarily funded by small, individual donations.
ABOUT FINDING A HAVEN
FOR AN EXOTIC ANIMAL:
* Contact Vernon Weir at the American Sanctuary Association, 2308 Chatfield Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89128. For a list, by species, of accredited animal sanctuaries accepting various kinds of critters see The Association of Sanctuaries' Web site: http://www.taosanctuaries.org/

Should humans own exotic birds?
Estimates of the size of the exotic-bird population, and of the scope of the unwanted-bird problem, vary widely. The most conservative estimates come from aviculturists - bird breeders and fanciers - who say there are about 20 million parrots in the United States. By contrast, the Avian Welfare Coalition, an alliance of protection groups, estimates there will be 60 million exotic birds of all types living in the country by next year.
Either way, that's a lot of birds. "There are way more birds that need somewhere to go than there are places for them," said Vernon Weir, executive director of the American Sanctuary Association.
Bird advocates like Weir fear that we are rapidly approaching the day when excess or problem birds will be euthanized as routinely as unwanted dogs and cats.
In general, aviculturists downplay the problem - the American Federation of Aviculture's Web site, http://www.afa.birds.org/, does not even mention the issue of unwanted birds. Aviculturists in general contend that most birds can be rehabilitated into private homes, and that breeders are performing an important service by perpetuating endangered species. Other, individual breeders donate to sanctuaries like The Oasis.
Within the animal rights movement, bird advocates disagree about whether individuals should keep exotic birds at all. Some, like Weir, argue that parrots are no more proper pets than panthers. "With exotic birds, these animals have only been removed from the wild and kept as pets for maybe two generations. They are wild animals that are used to flying. And they are flock animals as well - they need to be part of a flock. Now, suddenly they are stuck in a cage in somebody's home," Weir said. "We like to say, 'No flight, no fair.' "
Others, including The Oasis' executive director, Sybil Erden, encourage people who love birds to adopt existing homeless parrots and their relatives, rather than supporting more commercial exploitation of the winged wonders. "Until every bird in captivity has an appropriate home, we should not be manufacturing more lives," she said.
Erden added that real reform requires a deeper attitude adjustment. "The first step is getting away from the concept of ownership," she said. "We don't own anything. All we can be is caregivers. Once we realize we are caregivers and have a responsibility to these animals, maybe things will change."

Ziggy is a clubfooted macaw hybrid who lives at Oasis Sanctuary near Benson.

A sanctuary on the banks of the San Pedro River is home to almost 400 exotic birds, including such pairs as Archie and Edith, macaws estimated to be at least 60 years old

By Rebecca Boren
SPECIAL TO THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR

CASCABEL - Ruby the scarlet hybrid macaw and Scooter the cockatoo are lucky. They came to live by the banks of the San Pedro River in Southeastern Arizona. It's a rural place of rolling hills and red dirt roads, pecan orchards and cattle, set against a backdrop of mountains and open sky.

Seems typical until you spot the lines of outdoor cages, and hear the squawks of huge blue and gold macaws, the shrieks of red and green parrots, the chortles and chatter of cockatoos who sport dramatic, bright yellow crests.

Step inside the old pecan-shelling shed, and you are greeted by pandemonium - macaws of every color flying free in the newly airy space, chatty African grey parrots visiting at cage doors, agile parrot cousins sneakily unlocking the few closed cages that house disabled or unsociable birds.

Ruby and Scooter live at The Oasis Sanctuary, 71 acres near Cascabel and a 65-mile drive east of Tucson. It's home to almost 400 exotic birds, ranging from Moluccan and citron crested cockatoos that are endangered in the wild to everyday parakeets.

"The Oasis is one of the largest exotic-bird sanctuaries in the country. It may actually be the largest," said Vernon Weir, executive director of the American Sanctuary Association, which inspects and certifies legitimate wild animal havens. It is also squawking, shrieking and cooing testimony to what many believe is an imminent bird population crisis, with far too many birds being bred under commercial conditions, then purchased by ignorant and sometime abusive owners.

People may spend thousands of dollars on a bird and its accouterments because the members of the parrot family are beautiful, often magnificent creatures, intelligent, sometimes cuddly and generally cuter than the dickens.

Then they find out that their new pet may greet every dusk and dawn with window-rattling screams; take a strong dislike to certain family members; bite off fingers with little warning; and destroy your possessions. It's like having "a 2-year-old that eats your walls," Oasis director Sybil Erden said.

Add in the fact that many parrots are likely to outlive their harried owners - Archie and Edith, one retired breeding pair of blue and gold macaws, were caught in the wild as adults and are estimated to be somewhere in their 60s - and you have a recipe for avian disaster.

The Oasis gets the results. The sanctuary houses feathered residents that were tortured with lit cigarettes, used as footballs, blinded by beatings, even permanently deformed by being kept in tiny cages before coming here.

Other birds come from rescue organizations, groups of people who take in, rehabilitate and find homes for abandoned and abused birds. For a rescued bird to wind up at The Oasis, someone has had to decide he or she is not a suitable candidate for adoption into a private home.

Socrates - Socs to his friends - is an African grey, a type of parrot so renowned for intelligence and language ability that there is a nascent movement to give them legal rights. Socs "is the smartest, most speech-specific bird I've had," Erden said. "He calls everyone by name, and his remarks are always appropriate to a specific situation."

But when Socrates came to The Oasis last winter, he had been kept locked away in a back bedroom and screamed at by his previous owners. His foul vocabulary and uncanny imitations of adults threatening children and of tots crying testified that he had been in an abusive home. He had plucked out all of his own feathers, a sure sign of a deeply disturbed bird. After he bit a 2-year-old, his owners offered him to The Oasis. They refused to pay $125 to $200 for needed medical testing, saying they could have him destroyed for only $40.

The Oasis blinked, and sent volunteers to pick him up.

Today Socs, age 4, roams around the bird building. He has found himself a buddy, another African grey named Brody, whose former owner sent him to the sanctuary after the owner was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Socs' feathers are even growing back.

By contrast, many of the birds who wind up at The Oasis have so severely plucked themselves, they are permanently naked. Rory, a once-magnificent blue and gold macaw, has stripped everything but her head and tail and the edges of her wings. Her little gray body looks like it's ready for the stew pot.

Others, like Archie and Edith, are retired breeders. They were captured in the wild - which is now illegal - and have never bonded with humans and never will.

Some of the winged critters have nasty habits - like attacking humans. J.J., a Moluccan cockatoo, attacked an Ohio rehabber, who wound up needing 12 stitches in his face. "He loves it if you sing to him . . . but if you try and touch him, he'll rip you open," Erden said. She added, "I love this bird. He's such a troubled soul."

Herbal antidepressants have helped.

All these birds find permanent, lifelong homes at The Oasis. The sanctuary, which is the only such facility in the country to be accredited by the two leading organizations that sanction animal havens, does not adopt out, breed or sell any birds.

Instead, Erden and her staff of five on-site workers try to give the birds homes that mimic life in the wild, only safer. "It's a lot of work to take care of those birds every single day, and she does a good job of it," Weir said.

Erden founded The Oasis in Phoenix in 1997, as a sanctuary for all parrot and parrot-type exotic birds. She is a writer and artist who began by raising lovebirds. Soon all sorts of people - friends of friends, relatives, even her ex-mother-in-law - began giving her their unwanted winged companions. Erden says she realized she either had to stop taking in birds, or put her career on hold. She chose the birds.

In 2000, the organization spent $300,000 to buy the Cascabel property, down 8 miles of dirt and gravel roads, and so isolated that most staff members live on the property in manufactured homes.

Every bird capable of living outdoors year-round (about 80 percent of the total), does. There, in the old pecan orchard, they reside in large, airy enclosures - it seems misleading to call them cages - several feet off the ground.

An almost completed free-flight aviary will soon house most of the smallest birds - 75 cockatiels, two dozen parakeets, and some of the other, relatively mellow smaller birds. The two dozen or so resident lovebirds will move into a separate section.

Erden hopes to build a second free-flight facility, including room for the bachelor and widower cockatoos to live together in one big, presumably happy, flock, as soon as she raises the $30,000 needed to buy materials.

Although The Oasis is supposed to be only a bird sanctuary, other animals have found their way to safety there, including dogs, cats, sheep and horses. "The thing about a sanctuary is, everything shows up," Erden said. "And we keep them if we can care for them."

* Contact free-lance writer Rebecca Boren at rebeccajboren@aol.com.

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Last Modified: April 25, 2008 17:23 MST