Max sits in the corner crooning I Left My Heart in San Francisco.
Ginny rips out her iridescent green and orange feathers, self-mutilating like the addicts in the crack house where she was rescued.
Peaches lost a wing but seems to have the run of the special needs unit, toddling around on her pigeon toes and chatting up anyone within earshot.
Parrots (including cockatoos, cockatiels, macaws and other exotic psittacines) are the hottest new pet for busy urbanites. In the United States, the number of pet birds quadrupled in the 1990s, to more than 40 million by some industry estimates. And bird sales continue to grow by an estimated 5 per cent a year.
But the dark side of the surge in popularity of pet parrots is an ever-growing population of abandoned birds.
"There has been an alarming increase in the number of displaced and unwanted birds in recent years," says Wendy Huntbatch, who runs the World Parrot Refuge in Coombs, B.C., on the east side of Vancouver Island, "because people have no idea how much time and energy it takes to care for these exotic wild animals."
Ms. Huntbatch provides homes for more than 500 abandoned and homeless birds at the refuge, the largest of its kind in the country, through her non-profit For the Love of Parrots Refuge Society.
With individual birds selling for up to $15,000, the trafficking of wild birds is on the rise, accounting for a significant part of the estimated $10-billion (U.S.) to $20-billion international exotic wildlife trade. According to the World Wildlife Fund, 94 of the world's 330 parrot species are threatened with extinction.
According to the Species Survival Network, a global coalition of wildlife conservation groups, the yellow-crested cockatoo of East Timor and Indonesia is close to extinction as a result of trapping and poaching for the pet trade, and the Spix's macaw of Brazil is already extinct in the wild. The popular African grey parrot is also a threatened species, and in Bolivia, the endangered red-fronted macaw is protected under a new conservation program.
Yet despite a European Union ban as of July 1 on the importation of wild-caught birds - a move triggered by fears of the spread of avian influenza - and a similar ban in the United States, Canada continues to allow wild parrots to be imported as pets.
"The U.S. has had legislation against the importation of wild-caught birds since 1992 - it's time for Canada to do the same," says Ms. Huntbatch, who is circulating a petition to stop the sale of wild parrots.
Few people understand the horrors of the wild bird trade, she says, or the long-term commitment of owning a parrot.
At the World Parrot Refuge, an educational facility open to tourists and school groups, the sad and graphic stories of more than 500 feathered residents - like Max, Ginny and Peaches - are told through interpretive panels and video presentations. The overriding message is this: Parrots are wild animals that deserve freedom, not caging as pets, and buying exotic birds threatens species in the wild.
Ms. Huntbatch thinks people continue to buy birds because of status, style and a misguided belief that a parrot is happy to live its life in a cage (making it a low-maintenance pet).
Parrots are actually social creatures and mate for life, so they can be extremely lonely without their flock. Birds need more than a perch and a cage - they need an aviary with room to fly. The stress of being confined in a cage can lead to excessive screaming, self-mutilation and other abnormal behaviours. And parrots, whether huge macaws or small budgies, need special diets of fresh tropical fruit, seeds, nuts, vegetables and protein, plus lots of toys to attack and shred.
