President's Message

Article from “The Mickaboo Bird Rescue Companion”
Published January, 2025

By Tammy Azzarro

Happy New Year to all of our hard-working volunteers, bird-loving adopters, foster families, and generous donors, and thank you for your continuing support for and interest in Mickaboo and our wonderful birds. We are preparing to embark on a new segment of our ongoing journey to rescue domestic birds in Northern California.

But first - what happened this year? We’ve been busier than ever. Mickaboo took in 143 new birds this year, and adopted out 138. That leaves us with a total of 445 birds currently in our care. Of that total, 399 are in foster care, and 46 are hospitalized or require special care (such as hospice care).

The largest number surrendered by species was the 45 budgies. There was also a very large number of cockatiels (29) surrendered and a tragically large number of incoming Telegraph Hill conures (21). Because the Telegraph Hill birds are wild, the birds we take in are either sick or injured. A minority of them can be rehabilitated for eventual release back into their flock; ten were released this year. However, many of them are not releasable due to their injuries and/or inability to survive out on their own, and need continued care through our foster and veterinary network.

On a more positive note, our hardworking volunteers found adoptive homes for more budgies than we took in: there were 46 budgie adoptions versus 45 surrendered! That was also true of African greys and cockatoos — there were12 adopted greys versus 8 surrendered, and 7 adopted cockatoos versus 5 surrendered!

Of course, we still have far too many birds waiting for their forever homes, including the “smalls”, budgies, lovebirds and cockatiels, as well as the larger species including greys, cockatoos and macaws. Do you know someone that would benefit from having a bird in their home? Talk to them about Mickaboo!

A critical and unique hallmark element of Mickaboo’s work is our willingness to take in birds that are sick or injured, get them to avian vets, and rehabilitate them so that they can have happy, healthy lives. To do this requires that we work with avian vets all around northern California. Accomplishing this requires that we not only find like-minded individuals who are passionate about bird welfare and are willing to foster, adopt or volunteer, it also requires fundraising to pay our incredible avian vets, and, we must continue to advocate for these often-forgotten pets, so that they are given the same consideration and level of care in shelter and veterinary settings in general. Since its inception, Mickaboo has pushed back against the all too common sentiment that birds are somehow inferior to other pets. However, thankfully, things are changing for the better as, over the years, we are seeing more and more respect shown to these extraordinary creatures.

While our intake numbers have grown and our veterinary bills are high, the number of bird lovers and dedicated volunteers has also soared. The joy that so many of our volunteers experience when the injured or sick bird they have cared for goes off to a forever home, ready for the rest of their life, is a great reward for all of us. If you have not fostered a special needs bird, consider it in the future — we’ll give you all of the support and assistance you might need and the satisfaction is very real. And we’ll pay the vet bills!

Critical to finding homes for our birds are events we call “adoption fairs”. In recent years post-Covid, these have been virtual events. In the past, we held meet-the-birds events in person, and we are interested to doing those again. This last year we held eight virtual adoption fairs and our volunteers (and some of our birds) worked at 13 other in-person activities to publicize Mickaboo and our birds. Another featured activity was our Annual Holiday Auction and Funraiser, which occurred between Giving Tuesday and the following Sunday. Thanks to our many generous donors and auction winners, we beat our $50,000 fundraising goal, raising enough funds to pay for the veterinary needs of our rescue flock for about a month.

As we head into 2025 and embark on our 28th year of rescuing, rehabilitating and rehoming birds, as well as educating the public on bird care, we are excited to grow and increase our efforts to help more birds than ever. If you are a current volunteer, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. If you are reading this and considering becoming involved, please reach out and join the Mickaboo family. As the saying goes, “it takes a village”, and we are always looking to expand our friendly and fabulous feathered village.