A Local Aviculturalist Makes His Home A Haven For Exotic Birds That Are In Danger Of Extinction -- For The Birds

The frantic woman didn't want her big white Moluccan cockatoo anymore. "You've got to come get it, right now," she yelled on the phone. "It's been screaming for four months. My husband says if it's not gone by tonight he's going to shoot it.

"Or me."

Dan Ozog drove more than 100 miles that night to pick up Woody, a valuable sulfur-crested talking bird. It's the kind of trip the Edmonds man has made more than once when bird owners decide they can't keep their large pet birds anymore and, for whatever reason, they can't sell them either.

Another day, another bird. This time a 14-year-old double-yellow-headed Amazon parrot, coincidentally also named Woodrow, who'd been with his owner since birth. They lived in an apartment; he rarely went into his cage. But recently he'd begun chewing cupboards and throwing cups around. He attacked and bit his owner whenever visitors came over.

"Woodrow was bonded to his owner since he didn't have a mate. He'd get extremely jealous. She thought he'd `turned' on her. As birds do, he'd attack her to get her to stay away from other people.

"He was chewing up the furniture to make a nest. In the wilds he'd be chewing up trees."

Often Ozog talks with the owners and tries to help solve the problem. Sometimes that means finding a mate for the bird, or rearranging the owner's home (moving the bird to a more protective room) or lifestyle.

"People get a big bird never realizing it can live 50 or 80 years," he says. "Or they get a bird that's relatively tame and then it becomes an adolescent and ready to mate and goes into a loud, screaming, chewing state that's normal in the wild, but horrendous in the house."

All too often people spend big bucks for a big bird only to find a few months or a few years later that their lives change - marriage, children, demanding jobs - and they can't give it proper attention anymore.

"So they try to sell it or give it away, sometimes to no avail," Ozog says. "So they call someone like me, who raises birds as a hobby rather than as pets."

Ozog will be among the many bird experts at the Aviculture Society of Puget Sound's annual Bird Fair, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday in the Seattle Center Flag Pavilion. He'll be at the information booth.

A geriatric social worker by trade, Ozog is a big mustached man who favors flowered shirts and chunky trade-bead necklaces. (Stringing beads is his quieter hobby.) At the nursing home where he works, his office is filled with rattan mats, large tropical plants and carved masks.

His home is even more of a museum.

Since their days as Peace Corps workers on the South Pacific island of Tonga, Ozog and his wife Sandy, a middle-school teacher, have collected native art masks, wall-hangings, rugs, beads, paintings and dolls. They have three children, daughters Kasha, 13, and Anyka, almost 5, and son Chad, 11. The birds - more than 35 of them - live in the garage.

Ozog got his first bird, a parakeet, when he was 6. When he and Sandy married, she was firm about separating his birds from the rest of their life.

"Birds are messy and noisy. I put up with them, but I don't have to love them," Sandy says. "They're OK, as long as the family comes first."

When the couple bought their home, the garage became the aviary. He raised birds - progressing from canaries to finches, lovebirds and cockatiels - and she raised children. By the time they were expecting Anyka, the flock had grown to almost 200.

Even for Ozog that was too much.

"I decided to go for fewer, bigger birds. Gradually I found homes for all the little guys."

Ozog spends hundreds of hours on his birds and could spend thousands of dollars if he didn't do so much scrounging and trading of baby birds and equipment for feed and supplies.

On weekends, often accompanied by a child, Ozog travels a regular grocery-store route to collect cases of overripe fruit and vegetables to supplement his hefty feed bills. He buys 100-pound bags of dried corn and dog food, and feeds the birds family leftovers.

The big colorful Amazons from South America and most of the cockatoos in Ozog's aviary are considered endangered in their native lands. Some are worth thousands of dollars. Some are now illegal to import. And some people believe no one should own these birds. It's a controversial topic, but Ozog says he has no guilt over his birds.

"All my birds have either been given to me, or a few I've traded my babies for," he says. "I have the ones others don't want or can't keep."

Ozog believes there's another important reason to keep and breed the endangered birds, which are already here and could not survive if they were taken back to the wilds: "If the rain forests and other habitats native to these birds are destroyed, they will become extinct - except for the ones raised in captivity."

He regularly takes that message - along with some of the more glamorous and talkative birds - to schools.

`If we breed the birds already in captivity, there is hope their descendents gradually can be returned to the wild, if there is a place for them to go," he told a group recently. `"n Indonesia that's happening with the fruit doves, which are very endangered. They've taken birds bred in captivity to protected bird preserves and then hope to release their descendeants back into the wild."

Later he talks about the students: "I try to bring the lessons of environment, ecology and the interconnections of animals, forests and people to them, to make it come alive.

"When I hear that I've interested someone in learning more, in going to the zoo or getting concerned about the environment, then I've accomplished something real.

"One class is now raising money to donate to Nature Conservancy. If just one child goes on to become a vet or biologist or follow some other path in part because of my birds, it's worth it."

MEET WITH FELLOW BIRD-LOVERS

Tropical birds and bird lovers will be part of the Aviculture Society of Puget Sound's annual Bird Fair, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. tomorrow at the Seattle Center Flag Pavilion. Workshops include cage-building, 10 a.m.; bird first aid, 11 a.m.; choosing the right bird, noon; parrot training, 1 p.m.; hand-fed babies, 2 p.m.; bird identification, 3 p.m.; sex identification, 4 p.m.; and grooming, 5 p.m. ($2-$3; 939-2490 or 868-7871)

Here are some local bird clubs: Aviculture Society of Puget Sound (ASOPS), second Wednesdays of each month, 7:30 p.m., University Christian Church, 4731 15th Ave. N.E.; Kim Watts, 932-1599 or Ann Jones, 868-7871.

Northwest Exotic Bird Society, third Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m., Woodland Park Activities Resource Center, 5500 Phinney Ave. N.; Janay Tebo 485-6571.

Avis NW Bird Club, third Sundays, 7 p.m., Grace Baptist Church, 2506 N. Vassault St., Tacoma; Mary Johnson, 1-206-531-4915.

South Sound Exotic Bird Society, second Fridays, 7:30 p.m., Olympia Community Center, 220 N. Capitol Way, Olympia; Ray Klatt, 1-206-426-6375.

International Bird Fanciers, first Sundays, 2 p.m., locations vary, Snohomish County; Reg English, 1-206-334-9541. IBF Bird Fair, Nov. 7-8 at Lake Stevens Middle School.