Ben, the Blue and Gold Macaw, with his beloved Maggie.

Hello Everyone!

I just wanted to let you all know about how we are doing, and our hard work to raise funds to cover our daily care and medical costs here at the World Parrot Refuge.

We started our own snack bar at Postal Depot 4 in Langford! We managed to talk some great people (Marina and Bernie) into doing a lot of the physical stuff for us because people just don’t take parrots seriously. Really! Even though we had the cash ready to buy candy, pop and cookies, we could not convince anyone at the wholesalers that we meant business! It's a good job that some people see us as the smart and sensitive beings that we are, or our efforts would have got stuck in the “planning” stage!

We're happy to report that in the last 6 months our snack bar has been very well attended by all of the staff of Postal Depot 4. What a great flock of people they are! They bought enough from us to pay for almost a whole year's care for us both! They even bought extra goodies so that we could help to pay for repairs after that dreadful windstorm blew part of our roof off last year.

Our friends from Postal Depot 4 are coming to visit again soon and they will bring the profits from our busy snack bar to help with our medical fees. My beloved Maggie has congestive heart failure, and I have really bad arthritis, mostly because those awful people broke my ankles when they trapped me over 30 years ago. No-one cared in those days, so my ankles healed in the wrong position and my feet just don’t work. I can get around OK though by using my powerful neck muscles and my beak. Some days the pain is bad, but I have my darling Maggie to make me feel good again. I am so happy that we came here as we were both very lonely before, and stuck in cages all day. We make the perfect couple. I am slow because of my disability and my Maggie can’t rush because of her heart.

We heard some great news today. Apparently Postal Depot 1 in Victoria would also like to have their own snack bar! Andy the Hyacinth Macaw is going to be responsible for that location. He is very happy to do this as he feels that a male of his stature should really have a business of his own and be able to support himself. He is so happy to work with the wonderful people of Postal Depot 1. His motto will be - “Eat Cookies for your Health!”

Andy then had the brilliant idea of branching out and offering franchises to anyone who could help us. He said, why stop at Postal Depots? Surely, he said, there are people working at grocery chain stores, vet offices, dental offices, real estate offices and other places, who would love the chance to help us. We have over 500 franchises available! So if you would love to get together with your flock and run one of our franchises, please contact Ben and Maggie, courtesy of our good friend, Wendy. You can contact her at wendy@worldparrotrefuge.org and she will pass the information on to us.

I hope to write to you again soon, and bring you more good news about our franchises!

Sincerely,
Ben and Maggie Macaw

Please click on the thumbnails below to learn how you can help some special birds have a home for life through our "Virtual Adoption" program! More stories coming soon!

Birds who are now partly sponsored, thank you!

Birds who are now fully sponsored, thank you!

"This is, in a word, a great place and these miraculous creatures deserve no less, but few places can deliver it this well. It is, indeed, 'world class'."

– Stewart Metz (author and Director of the Indonesian Parrot Project), after his visit at the Grand Opening of the Refuge on August 13, 2005.

"The World Parrot Refuge is a true sanctuary where parrots live out their lives in a loving, spacious and happy environment under the guidance of extraordinarily caring people. The many visitors destined to pass through the refuge will come to understand that parrots are not toys or trophies, but beings with needs and emotions as real as our own."

– Rosemary Low (author of more than 30 books on parrots)