Health & Fitness
Dedicated Volunteers Help Rescued Birds Take Flight to New Homes
The dedicated volunteers of Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue in the San Francisco Bay Area give up their spare time to come to the aid of hundreds of at risk birds each year.
They can be friendly, affectionate, chatty, noisy, curious, clownish, enchanting, playful, shy, and maybe even a little exasperating at times—they are companion birds, and thanks to the dedicated Bay Area volunteers at Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue, thousands of parakeets, parrots, cockatiels, cockatoos, macaws, and others facing neglect or an early demise are finding new homes.
The volunteer-run Mickaboo (a combination of two birds named “Mick” and “Aboo” belonging to the group’s founders) rescues and places a few hundred birds every year, with estimates of helping a total of up to 1,000 birds with its programs. At any given time there are more than 300 birds in the “foster flock”, cared for in volunteers’ homes dotting the region, according to board member Pamela Lee.
The nonprofit is not as well known as dog and cat rescue groups, but for about 17 years it has consistently offered a safe place for San Francisco Bay Area residents to relinquish birds, adopt, and find much-needed advice and guidance.
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Cupertino resident Tania Tengan has volunteered for three years for the group, teaching basic care classes for bird owners, and raising money through the feathered jewelery she creates called Art for the Birds, using feathers dropped naturally by Mickaboo birds and other companion birds from around the country.
"I take my feathers wherever I go. I'm a walking advocate for Mickaboo wherever I am," she said.
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The driving force of Mickaboo is a group of about 200 volunteers like Tengan and Lee, including around 100 foster parents, who give many hours of service, all for the love of birds.
Lee said she is inspired daily by the “unselfishness of so many of the volunteers—they give up their weekends, they give up hours during the day, they go on emergency ‘go pick up that bird now’ (calls), answer the phones…deal with medical issues that would tear one’s heart apart…It takes a special kind of person to do this.”
To learn more about how the volunteers of Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue help birds and owners, and to find out how you can help, see the original full version of this story on Good Neighbor Stories.
