Montreal Gazette

Social media helps lost N.D.G. parrot get home

Nearby resident kept bird safe while her online post helped owner locate him

- ISAAC OLSON

When Piou-Piou the parrot flew the coop on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, his owner was certain he had lost his beloved pet forever.

“I was putting some sheets on the cord, and I forgot to close the door,” said Claude Cadieux, a West Hill Ave. resident who has had the 19-year-old white-capped pionus for about seven years. “Suddenly, I turned my head, and I saw the bird flying away.”

Cadieux was crestfalle­n, but he had reason to hold out hope.

More than 24 hours later, on the evening of Aug. 7, the parrot touched down six blocks away, landing on a fifth-floor penthouse terrace where Tania McIntosh was having dinner with her in-laws at their home. McIntosh, currently on maternity leave with her eightmonth-old son, has long worked in veterinari­an offices and she volunteers for the SPCA.

She knew just what to do. “He was very, very happy to be picked up by people,” McIntosh recounted. “He actually ran toward us. I picked him up, brought him straight into the kitchen, shut all the doors so he wouldn’t fly away and gave him some dinner. He had some blueberrie­s, some grapes, some cashews. He didn’t like mangoes though.”

Once Piou-Piou had eagerly eaten his fill, he tucked himself into a tiny nook above the fridge and promptly went to sleep. That’s when McIntosh launched a search for the owner, asking residents in the building, on the corner of Sherbrooke St. W. and Beaconsfie­ld Ave., if they knew anything about the bird.

No such luck. So she contacted rescue organizati­ons and nearby vet offices while posting a photo to Facebook. That post was quickly shared more than 200 times.

McIntosh considered taking the bird to her home in Brossard but, later that evening, Piou-Piou spooked a couple of times and flew into a window. He wasn’t injured, but McIntosh realized she didn’t have the means to properly cage and care for the parrot. She and her boyfriend brought it to the SPCA around 11:30 p.m. It wasn’t her ideal solution since found birds are often adopted out after only three days.

McIntosh put her name down as a potential foster parent, planning to buy the necessary equipment to house the bird until a solution was found, but little did she know, her social media post would eventually land in the right person’s news feed.

The friend who originally gifted Piou-Piou to Cadieux saw the post on the evening of Aug. 8 and, from there, it wasn’t long before the adventurin­g parrot was returned home.

“I’m really happy to have him back,” Cadieux said. “It’s like a miracle.”

Normally, Cadieux keeps PiouPiou’s wing feathers clipped so he can’t fly away. It had been awhile, he admitted, but he plans to keep them maintained in the future.

Paula Sloniegora is the founder of Marley’s Menagerie, a small non-profit parrot rescue and adoption centre in the Laurentian­s. She recommends owners have wing feathers profession­ally clipped if they think there is any chance of escape. Otherwise, she said birds should be kept in closed rooms without any open doors or windows.

While there are risks of predators like hawks outdoors, she said a resourcefu­l parrot can survive Quebec’s summers. However, freezing temperatur­es are a likely death sentence without immediate help. Parrots, she said, cannot see well at night and will usually roost in a tree until morning. If a parrot is nervously perched out of reach, Sloniegora said treats, like fruits and nuts, are a good way to entice it down for rescue.

“Sometimes it will take a couple of years to find a bird and return it to an owner,” she said. “I tell owners, ‘Don’t give up hope.’ ”

SPCA spokespers­on Anita Kapuscinsk­a said pet birds are returned more often than people think as they tend to seek out humans when they are hungry.

In Montreal, rules vary by borough as to how long a bird will be sheltered by the SPCA before being adopted out, but, even if it is only three days, Kapuscinsk­a said a highly co-ordinated effort to find the owner is conducted during that time. Volunteers scour the internet for missing-pet ads, post ads of their own and contact rescue organizati­ons such as Perroquet Secours.

If a pet is lost or found, Kapuscinsk­a encourages people to contact the SPCA. The SPCA, she said, will provide advice and support. There are teams of volunteers and staff standing by ready to help.

Of the found pets that are physically brought to the SPCA, more than 500 are returned to their homes every year, but Kapuscinsk­a said that number doesn’t account for every success story because some people will house found animals themselves while the SPCA helps find the owners.

“If you lost your bird, don’t lose hope,” Kapuscinsk­a concluded. “A lot of people get reunited with their lost pets, and parrots are definitely no exception.”

He actually ran toward us. I picked him up, brought him straight into the kitchen … and gave him some dinner.

 ?? DAVE SIDAWAY ?? When a parrot landed on Tania McIntosh’s terrace in N.D.G., she posted a photo of him on Facebook, asking for help finding the owner, Claude Cadieux, right, who was reunited with Piou-Piou days later.
DAVE SIDAWAY When a parrot landed on Tania McIntosh’s terrace in N.D.G., she posted a photo of him on Facebook, asking for help finding the owner, Claude Cadieux, right, who was reunited with Piou-Piou days later.

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