THE RAINBOW WARRIORS
TAYLOR BANASZAK: A PASSION FOR PARROTS
by LOUISE "WIND WALKS WOMAN" BARTON (Cherokee/Mohawk)
The fifth article in our Rainbow Warrior series honors Taylor Banaszak, founder of Precious Parrot, located in Kings Park, Long Island. To paraphrase the Cree proverb, on which these articles are founded, when birds are in trouble, this lady bravely comes to their rescue. Taylor feels too many people keep pets, not out of love, but because of a need for control and superiority. What she finds most upsetting is the fact that when a pet doesn't live up to its owner's expectations, the pet is quickly discarded. This is especially true in the case of parrots.
These pictures are from one of Taylor's recent rescues, where the bird owner stopped taking psychotropic drugs in favor of marijuana and cocaine. By the time the owner was removed by ambulance, her apartment was strewn with garbage, food, bugs, clothing, pornography -- and six birds, flying free. The owner had lived alone and, during her week's stay in the hospital, told no one of her pets. Miraculously, the birds had managed to scratch up enough seed and water to survive.
This next set of pictures is of birds that were part of a drug bust in the Bronx, where the dealers were pretending to be a pet store. Rescued by the CACC, these four birds were turned over to Taylor in Huntington. By the time she transported them to Linda LaFleurs home and set them up in the finished garage, she discovered the cages were loaded with cockroaches.
Meet Case, the bird who went astray. When Taylor first became involved in bird rescue, she received a call from Jim. His Mealy Amazon disappeared in August and was spotted in November in College Point. On that freezing Saturday morning, the owner and rescuers spent six miserable hours searching for Case, to no avail. The loss was posted on web sites, hotlines, and the Newsday, but no luck. In the meanwhile, Case was found by two teenage boys who brought him to a vet.
Apparently struck by a car, Case had injured wings, a broken hip, and broken toes. The tech paid the boys $200 for the bird, treated it, and gave it to her mother in Pennsylvania. The mother did dog rescue and Case didn't like the dogs, so the bird was passed on to a neighbor. The neighbor was curious and began searching for Case's original owner. Now Case has a little flaw in her beak, which is hardly noticeable unless you knew what to look for, and this flaw was positive identification. It was three long years later when a photo match was finally made and Taylor went to Pennsylvania on Thanksgiving Day to pick up Case and reunite her with Jim.
Taylor developed a passion for birds when she was 12 and Woodstock, a parakeet, flew into her sister's backyard. Over the years, Taylor purchased more parakeets and then cockatiels. At 19 she decided to breed the cockatiels, thinking she could make money doing something she enjoyed. By Christmastime, she'd successfully bred a clutch of three babies, which she hand raised. When the babies were weaned and ready to be sold, Taylor realized she loved them so much, she couldn't part with them-- and that was the end of her attempts at breeding.
Up until then, Taylor hadn't had any pet birds larger than a cockatiel. Then, in 1995, while attending law school in Buffalo she entered a pet shop and fell instantly in love with a sweet Patagonian Conure. Immediately developing a passion for parrots, she bought Jasmine. A Sun Conure and a Quaker quickly followed.
Moving back to NYC in 1997, Taylor came upon the Long Island Parrot Society at a fair in Suffolk County. Up until then, neither she nor her partner, Peggyann, had been aware that a parrot club existed. Learning that a simple listing service to match lost-and -found birds had begun in 1991 and that there was a growing need for parrot rescue, they quickly joined as parrot-rescue volunteers.
Within a month of volunteering, the group efforts of Taylor, Peggyann, and Parrot Rescue's staff were no longer just a listing service. As with any one else who attempts exotic bird rescue, they quickly found themselves inundated with unwanted birds. In addition to taking lost-and-found calls, they were now picking up both found and unwanted parrots, doing search and rescue for lost and sighted birds, and rehabilitating emotionally disturbed parrots. Within the first six months of rescue work, Taylor was forced to re-evaluate her entire position on parrot keeping. Up until then, she'd always enjoyed the pleasure of a parrot's company without having to face the hard facts about these wonderful creatures.
Parrots are born free, with an innate instinct to survive and to be wild. Extremely intelligent, highly organized beings, Nature has given them the gift of flight. While human desire to make them pets soothes our need for companionship, it does so at a terrible price to the birds.
Born in the wild, parrots are captured for the pet trade. The cruelty of capture methods is matched only by the cruel, smuggling methods used to bring these birds into the United States. Packed alive into car tires, engines, and the interior of car doors, they are driven across the Mexican border. Small wonder that more than 90% of these birds die in transport before reaching their destination.
Even birds born into captivity and hand-raised are only a generation or two out of the wild and still retain much of their wild traits. When these birds still exhibit signs of their wild heritage, we label them problem parrots. Much of the suffering of so many pet parrots (feather picking, self-mutilation, and insanity) is a clear indicator that the concept of parrot keeping specifically -- if not pet keeping in general -- is wrong. Parrotology (the study of parrot care and behavior) is brand new. As we struggle to learn more about these parrots' needs and how to deal with their emotional needs, we do so at their expense. They suffer as we practice trial-and-error behavior modifications to achieve the perfect pet parrot.
In 2000, Taylor, together with Maureen Dietz and Karen Mullins, separated from the Long Island Parrot Society and created Parrot Rescue, Inc. Parrot Rescue, Inc. is a non-profit rescue group, focused on building a real shelter/sanctuary on Long Island. In 1997, they received 75 surrendered bird; in 2001, they received more than 300. Clearly the problem is increasing and the need for such a shelter has grown ten fold in the past few years. Witness the rapid growth of rescues and sanctuaries dedicated solely to parrots. In 2002 even dog and cat focused groups began to recognize the need to provide rescue and sanctuary to parrots.
Sadly, there are no controls on kitten and puppy mills and there are no controls on those who produce the sheer volume of unwanted parrots. Just as our society blithely exterminates unwanted cats and dogs, euthanasia of exotic pet birds is rapidly becoming our next alternative.
Louise "Wind Walks Woman" Barton is listed in the Internet Public Library's Native American Authors Project.
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When it comes your time to die,
be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death,
so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time
to live their lives over again in a different way;
sing your death song and die like a hero going home.
Chief Tecumseh, Shawnee Nation 1768 - 1813