by Pajarita » Fri May 12, 2017 11:55 am
Oh, so they now do have all weather outdoor aviaries for their birds?! That's great! Because the lack of flight rooms or aviaries for the winter months added to the obvious crowding (one cage next to the other) caused aggression between the birds to the point that they were not allowed to come out for, sometimes, months at a time; the high price they asked for the birds (it used to be $100 for a budgie!); and the never 100% confirmed but VERY damaging rumor (I know somebody who worked there for years) that Julie gave relinquished birds to be used as breeders to a personal friend of hers who had a bird mill in Florida (she was or still is an avian vet who, upon her divorce from her husband, was discovered to have been running an outdoor baby parrot mill when she had to auction over 400 pairs of breeding birds -in real bad shape, I might add!- to 'split the assets') were things that turned me off this rescue completely. There was also the rumor that this was a front for laundering mob money but, personally (and I know this is wrong!), I don't care if this is true or not as long as they do well by the birds. I do question their taking in sooooo many birds when they obviously don't have the room, enough volunteers or a good turnabout for them - I always fear that the very large rescues with hundreds of birds will end up as another Coombs situation sooner or later...