Education
Education is essential to successful captive parrot care. It provides an avenue for captive parrot caretakers to ensure a quality of life for their avian companions. An educated, prepared person is much more likely to maintain an interest in their captive parrot and provide a long-term, quality home.
All too often caretakers obtain a parrot without fully understanding their needs or how to interpret and successfully manage many of the behaviors that captive parrots demonstrate. This can lead to abuse or surrender of the animal.
MAARS offers multiple educational resources that are open to the public:
Avian Care Essentials Class
First step in a positive relationship with your feathered friend.
Parrot Family Preservation
Troubleshooting behavioral and environmental factors.
Corporate Team Building
Volunteer events for companies and organizations.
New Cages and Ongoing Care
The quality, durability, and security of the flock’s cages are of paramount importance to their well-being. Given the length of time MAARS has been in operation and the inevitable wear that occurs over time, a number of our current cages are in need of replacement.
Our goal is to procure 8 large and 8 extra-large cages in 2020 to replace those in the most need. Over the next 5 years, MAARS will need to replace around 20 cages.
New Sanctuary Space
The current MAARS shelter is located in Saint Paul, Minnesota in a converted office building. While the indoor quality of life for the 85 members of the MAARS flock is adequate the long term goal of MAARS is to relocate the flock to a location and space that enables the birds to have both indoor and outdoor space of the highest quality possible.
In addition to the above, the long term goal of MAARS is to ensure that the space can accommodate (in a manner that is non-intrusive to the flock) members of the public and other interested personnel for behavioral consultations, education, and fundraising purposes.
MAARS would be open to sharing space with an existing shelter or managing a sanctuary that could accommodate additional birds and/or organizations.