This beautiful oasis in the countryside pours the heart and soul of their small family into caring for previously unwanted or surrendered parrots. They are always at maximum capacity with cage space and in their avaries, but through miracles, generous volunteers and donors find ways to make their resources stretch to accomodate additional birds in need simply because they care. There are far too few nonprofit organizations like Souzas Sanctuary. They and a precious few others share the enormous responsibility of caring for the abandoned multitudes of these incredible long-lived animals. Too fascinating for their own good, more parrots are bred as "pets" than can be placed in homes willing to happily care for them for 40-80 years. I was drawn to help with the crisis of parrot homelessness after reading several books on the topic and owning a parrot of my own, so I reached out to Souzas Sanctuary about becoming a foster home for their rescues. Souzas was perfectly accomodating to my comfort level with parrots, my ideas, and with my schedule. I am currently a happy foster home to my first rescue parrot. I feel thankful to be doing my part to help feathered souls in need and I and so many others are grateful every day for the work Souzas continues to do. By supporting Souzas Sanctuary, we are not only helping individual parrots. We are helping by spreading the word that parrots do not make good pets, but there are an abundance facing grim futures in need of care and love right now should we choose to help.
These folks run a lovely parrot sanctuary for abandoned and rescued parrots. I've used the sanctuary as a pet sitting service for my Senegal Parrot. The money is used to help the other birds being rehomed and rehabilitated. So many pet parrots are abandoned and the work this sanctuary does is incredible.
Thank you Souzas family for your deep caring and respect for birds. You have a beautiful heart and Charlie and I will be always be grateful. We know our much loved conures are in the best hands. Thank you again for your selfless act.
I adopted my special needs African Grey parrot, now named Friday, from Souza's, in January 2016. The Souzas do unbelievable rescue work that goes far beyond the scale of their actual staff and budget - you'd expect them to be a much larger organization to provide the level of support they do to so many birds and their foster/adoptive families. Christy introduced herself to me through a Facebook post where I had expressed interest in adopting a rescue parrot when one might be in need in my area. I fell in love with the photo of Friday, and asked to adopt her. She is a special needs bird - had not ever been handled, was not tame, very frightened of people, and missing a foot and most of her feathers. The feathers will partially or fully grow back, but of course the foot won't. Christy asked me a LOT of questions to make sure I was aware and a prepared potential adopter for this particular bird, above and beyond the regular care needed for any parrot. And she put a lot of time into coordinating with me to arrange for Friday's vet checkups to take place with the sanctuary's preferred vet, to make certain her health checked out, before I scheduled a day off work for the 350 miles (each way) trip to from Long Beach to Gilroy to pick her up. I brought my Friday home a little over 5 months ago, and she has absolutely blossomed. She's tame, growing her feathers back, completely mobile and an amazing climber on her foot and stump (I call her my little monkey bird), and has become friends with my male African Grey of 17 years, Henry. She has gone from ignored and unwanted, to being a much loved bird who gives all the love in return. Christy has continued all along to provide help and support, and share enthusiasm about Friday's accomplishments. We are proud to be a Souza's Sanctuary Success Story, and I can not highly enough recommend that anyone who has interest in fostering or adopting a rescue parrot should contact Souza's! Not to mention, they are always putting all the resources at their disposal toward expanding and improving their facilities to care for more birds in need. So they can really use all the recognition and donations that can be brought their way - supplies and funds to put straight toward the care of all the birds under their roof and aviaries, and to take in others in need of rescue and loving homes.
Throughout my many years in animal care I have never seen a place that does so much and tries as hard as Souza's Sanctuary. They are completely dedicated to providing whatever it takes to benefit the animals. The owners have such huge hearts for all critters and it shows with everything they do. They change lives for the better everyday for both the animals and for the people who meet them. Huge thank you to them from me and all the birds, dogs, cats, chickens, goats, donkeys.... ❤️