ENCORE | 'Parrot listener' mends broken relationships between people and their birds
Imagine living with a two-to-five-year-old child for the rest of your life, says Melanie Shura, a former psychiatric nurse who is now a parrot specialist.
"[A] parrot will tell you everything you need to know. You just have to listen," says Shura.
Owning a parrot is a life-long commitment. On average, cockatoos live for more than 30 years and a macaw can live well past 50 years.
In The Current's documentary No Forever Home, Shura tells the story of a complicated human love triangle — one that involves a husband, a wife, and a 22-year-old cockatoo named Sydney.
"[Sydney] has attached right to the husband, physically, which is worrisome," says Shura
Parrots at Greyhaven Exotic Bird Sanctuary that need a home
In 2011, Jan and Gord of Winnipeg (The Current has agreed not to use their last names ) sent Sydney the cockatoo to the refuge. Now the couple is reuniting with their bird but the adjustment has not been easy.
Sydney has attacked Jan twice, first biting her on the ear, and then on her back as she turned to protect herself.
"Now we've brought her here and have to get her back into a family setting with us as her flock — not her birds anymore — so I'm hoping with Melanie's help we can do that for her."
"But at the same time I'm not sure if we will be keeping her or not," sobs Jan.
Melanie Shura is used to helping parrot owners in distress. As president of the charity Avian Welfare Canada she receives emails and frantic calls each week from people whose relationship with their parrot has hit the rocks.
"They are so desperate and they know darn well that if this bird goes to another home, somebody will beat this bird and harm it even further. So in order to save the bird another 30, 40 or 50 years of abuse they would sooner euthanize it, " says Shura.
As a parrot specialist, Shura has seen it all: people who hoard birds, birds left in abandoned apartments, birds who suffer post-traumatic stress from abuse, and birds who are depressed when the owner they've bonded with dies.
In the wild, more than one third of the parrot population is threatened or endangered due to loss of habitat and the illegal global pet trade. But while the wild parrot population declines, a steady stream of unwanted birds fill the few avian shelters in Canada and the U.S.
Shura is all too familiar with how demanding parrots that scream, chew and bite can be.
"Nobody connects with a bird, or brings a bird into their home, with the idea that it's going to fall apart and their hearts will be broken."
In almost every case that Shura has been involved with, she says people suffer as much, if not more, than the birds in distress.
Shura will continue to work with Jan and Gord while they decide if they want to keep Sydney to make sure that their bird can adjust to a new life in their home or somewhere else.
"Unfortunately the birds are the ones that end up getting moved and that's just the way it is. The people have to come first," says Shura.
"In my experience, if the people are not happy the bird is not happy, so because they are basically wild and can live for a long time, rare is the parrot who does have a forever home."
UPDATE: Since this story first aired in October, Jan reached out to The Current to let us know that Sydney the cockatoo was put to sleep. Sydney's extreme need to protect her territory led to the constant threat of attack for everyone in the home, including visitors and their dogs. She is buried on their property in Kenora, Ont.
"This was a decision that I know some people would think of as purely selfish ... I hope that it will be a story that you can pass along to the many people who think they want to have a bird as a pet. Not all pet stories have a happy ending and we will have to live with our pet's ending different than most people," she writes.
Listen to No Forever Home at the top of this web post, below the video.
The documentary No Forever Home was produced by Suzanne Dufresne and Josh Bloch.