Birds of a feather find sanctuary at World Parrot Refuge

You never heard such a ruckus.

Screeching, squawking, the occasional curse from someone who's stuck a finger too close to a beak and the whap and whir of a thousand rainbow-hued wings fill the air.

Welcome to World Parrot Refuge.

About 700 once-abused, neglected or abandoned birds live out what's left of their long lives in the 23,000-square-foot aviary that's a sanctuary, vet hospital and raucous bird zoo all in one near Coombs, B.C.

"These are my babies now," says Wendy Huntbatch, who started the refuge in 2005 on a country road about 25 miles north of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island.

"People get them as pets and then they realize they will live 60 years or more, and they get overwhelmed, or they get tired of caring for them."

Huntbatch has named each of her charges and recounts most of their stories by heart.

There's Ginny, a Catalina macaw, once kept in a dog crate in a crack house, where, Huntbatch says, "There were probably days when she wasn't given a kind word, much less food."

And Goldie, an umbrella cockatoo, loved until her owner became allergic to its dander.

And Bob, a blue-front Amazon, came to Huntbatch knowing how to say, "Hello, my name is Bob," bite really hard and then break into a rousing version of "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" by way of apology.

"That's Bob," says Huntbatch. "He knows what he's doing."

All the birds were either captured in the wild to be sold as pets or are first-generation offspring of once-wild birds. In the jungles where they're born, they form stable flocks and are highly social. That means those that are passed around from home to home as temporary pets take a long time to recover psychologically, Huntbatch says.

Many have plucked their feathered bodies bare in fits of self-mutilation. They may wear socks knit into special sweaters and head cones to keep them from continuing to peck away at new feathers. But they are too battered mentally and physically to join a flock at the refuge and are treated in a hospital wing for as long as it takes them to grow new feathers and healthy psyches.

The birds that are healthy enough live in flocks in 25-by-50-foot cages in three concrete-lined rooms where they roost in the limbs of "trees" constructed by staff. A new macaw section will be finished soon and will increase the length of the cages to 100 feet to give the flocks even more fly space.

Visitors are discouraged from touching the birds in cages, but Huntbatch and her staff often bring individual birds out to be cuddled and cooed over. The trustworthy may get a lip-to-beak kiss from Huntbatch.

It costs about $500 a year to treat and house a healthy parrot.

Huntbatch has watched the refuge grow to a $300,000-a-year enterprise. Most of the money comes from donations and admission fees. But in the past year, the provincial lotteries commission has added the refuge to the list of nonprofit agencies it is required by law to help support; about $75,000 has come to the refuge from lottery players. Canadian casinos have donated $11,000 toward an enlarged veterinary hospital to be built on site.

These birds' days as pets are over. They can't be adopted, although visitors can sign up to donate funds to "virtually" adopt one.

"They're ours now," says Huntbatch. "We'll care for them and love them until they're old and gray, just like old people."