Marden's Ark Avian Refuge is a 501(c)(3) companion bird rescue. Our Federal EIN # is 46-5333166. Donate via PayPal to donate.toATavianrefugeDOTorg

Our mission is to provide a high quality refuge funded by donations from large corporate sponsors, local business owners, and generous individuals so unwanted parrots and other exotic birds from the pet trade can find a permanent home where they receive the best medical care, quality food, fresh water, organic fruit and vegetables, a lot of personal attention and where they can even enjoy being part of a flock with the natural experience of free flight in a safe environment.

Please don't buy baby birds, or breed! Adopt instead! There are many rescues that do adoptions so if you are looking for a parrot as a pet, please contact them and give your loving home to a rescue bird. Buying a "hand-fed" baby does not guarantee that your bird will be sweet or cuddly. One of our sweetest birds is a co-parented Green Cheeked Conure that has never had her wings clipped and was definitely not hand-fed. (Co-parenting means socializing the baby birds while letting the parents raise them naturally - feeding them and teaching them how to be birds.)

The pet bird trade is following closely in the footsteps of the dog and cat models but perhaps at a higher rate of displacement. Birds, especially large parrots, often need more than one home because they have such long life spans. And while they are coveted for their amazing beauty and ability to speak our human language, they often become despised simply for being birds.

Birds can be: messy, demanding, fragile, time-consuming, needy, loud, destructive ... and the list goes on. When you see that cute bird on YouTube or that adorable baby bird in a pet store, think of all these things. Can you live with loud screaming every time you walk out of the room? Can you live with bite marks on the tops of your doors and your woodwork? Can you live with a messy floor that will have to be swept many times a day because they throw everything they eat or shred? Though they are messy - they are also very fragile! They must have a clean environment to thrive!

Birds are a very serious commitment. Please don't enter into it lightly without doing research and soul-searching to determine if owning a bird is truly a (huge) responsibility you can live with.

Almost every day I see ads in online forums and classifieds that echo the same sentiment "...just needs someone who can give them more time" or "I just don' t have the time to spend with them" or a million other variants that mean exactly the same thing. Ads that are trying to sell off or give away an unfortunate bird that is guilty only of being what they were born to be - a bird.

Consider also that the beautiful bird you are seeing may not appear so beautiful with half its feathers gone. Feather plucking is a torture we as humans have inflicted on our pet birds - they only do this self-mutilation in captivity. No one truly understands why, and indeed there may be many reasons.

And for those birds who are unwanted, for whatever reason, there are not enough homes. Rescues, havens, sanctuaries - are filling to capacity and yet breeders continue to churn out more babies to fill the pet stores' demands.

Please join with us in helping to be part of the SOLUTION to this problem.