BETTY FORD FOR BIRDS

Vancouver Island Facility Treats Addicted Pets

Polly want crack? Or maybe marijuana, a beer or a cloud of cigarette
smoke blown in the beak?

All are familiar scenarios to Wendy Huntbatch, president of the World
Parrot Refuge in the small Vancouver Island community of Coombs,
where, among 800 rescued birds, there are parrots withdrawing from
drugs, recovering from exposure to smoke or healing after
mistreatment by drug users and dealers.

"We have birds that were used as toys by drug addicts. Watching them
go through withdrawal is dreadful," Huntbatch said.

Parrots are a status symbol for many people who haven't got a clue of
how to care for these intelligent, demanding, long-lived birds, Huntbatch said.

"They put a parrot on their arm and they think they're a pirate," she said.

The backgrounds of many birds at the World Parrot Refuge are enough
to make their feathers fall out -- literally.

A derbyan parakeet, usually a vibrantly coloured bird, came in with
all colour sucked out of its feathers, a broken tail and a bad case
of the shakes.

"He would just vibrate," Huntbatch said. "It was horrible."

That parakeet is a success story.

"We have given him vitamin shots and he has done remarkably well. It
took about three weeks before his colour started coming back," Huntbatch said.

Others take much longer to recover or are beyond help.

An emaciated macaw, from a Toronto drug house, had lost all its
feathers by the time it arrived in Coombs, about 30 kilometres
northwest of Nanaimo.

"I worked with him here every day and we managed to put some weight
on him, but we never could get far. He was too damaged and he passed
on," Huntbatch said sadly.

However, the macaw's suffering wasn't entirely in vain. While he
lived, he served as a graphic object lesson to warn kids away from drugs.

"We have school trips coming in and I would show the kids another
bird of the same species and then show them this bird and say, 'This
is what drugs do to you,'" Huntbatch said.

Parrots, snakes and pit bull puppies are the animals of choice for
many drug dealers and users, said Penny Stone, B.C. SPCA Victoria
branch manager.

"Those are the animals they are drawn to because it makes them feel
macho," she said.

But caring for exotic animals takes a good deal of knowledge, Stone
added. "So those are the ones that suffer the most."

The World Parrot Refuge gives birds that arrive on its doorstep a
home for life and is unique in Canada.

But money is running out and, with wild-caught birds still being
imported and owners continuing to breed, Huntbatch wonders what the
future holds. Provincial gaming funding for the refuge was cut off
two years ago and the $400,000 annual budget has to be raised
entirely from donations.

"We have managed to pay the staff this weekend, but after that, I
don't know how I am going to get through," she said.