Full Screen Photographs © The Oasis Sanctuary

Oasis Sanctuary Foundation Ltd, more commonly known as The Oasis Sanctuary, was founded in 1997 as a life-care facility for exotic birds, primarily parrots.  The Oasis was the first such facility given a 501(c) (3) designation by the IRS, enabling the sanctuary to function as a not-for-profit, tax exempt organization. Over the 13 plus years that it has been in existence, not only has it become widely known, but it is also a highly regarded facility in the United States. I asked Sybil Erden, Founder and Executive Director of the Sanctuary, to give me some background on how The Oasis came into being. “I have always had what I refer to as, ‘an invisible sign’ over my home …. which only animals can see,” Sybil explained.  “Those of you with similar ‘signs’ will understand immediately.  This mythical or mystical sign reads ‘Sucker Lives Here. Look Pathetic for Food.’  All during my adult life, stray dogs, lost cats, injured wildlife would all find their way to whichever home I lived in, wherever I was.  In fact, it has gotten so bad that animals occasionally show up at whatever hotel or motel I am at anywhere around the globe!! “As such, I have always been ’the animal lady’ in the neighborhood. The animal lady (or man) is always viewed as, at the very least, eccentric…. but is always the first one called upon when there is an injured or sick animal found by neighbors.”

In the 1990’s, Sybil was married, successfully self-employed and living in a large ranch-style home on an acre of land in central Phoenix, AZ – called Oasis. True to her reputation, there were a number of other ‘residents’ as well – more than a half dozen cats of all descriptions, a few mixed breed dogs, a Koi pond (hence the name, Oasis) a donkey, two llamas, several sheep, a growing number of chickens and some guinea fowl. It wasn’t long before a couple of Lovebirds joined the menagerie, followed by a pair of African Grey Parrots.

A successful working artist, painter and photographer, Sybil had worked out of a home studio ever since leaving college in 1973, and at some stage during this time, she began doing some volunteer work in wild-life rehab, taking in non-releasable species such as grackles, starlings and pigeons.

“I should not have been surprised,” she says, “when someone knocked on my front door, asked whether I was ‘the bird lady’, handed me a small paper sack with holes punched in it and jumped back into her waiting car. I expected an injured dove, but instead found myself the proud caregiver of a pair of what I soon learned were incessantly breeding budgerigar parakeets.  Within a relatively short period of time, people began calling me whenever someone had a bird or two or three, which had to be re-homed…”

In 1992, after the loss of a close friend of hers, and a resulting deep depression, Sybil took the advice of her then husband to go “online”.  On the Internet, he told her, she would be able to learn more about the birds who were taking over her life.

“I had no idea what the ‘Internet’ was,” she says, “so he explained it would be like having a library of reference on my desk. It sounded good, and I soon learned that instead of academic tomes, I had discovered and fallen into the world of ‘Chat rooms’ and ‘list serves’.  And I also learned that I was not the only person out there taking in an ever increasing number of unwanted parrots!

“Back in the early ‘90’s there were very few people online. Nonetheless, several hundred ‘bird people’ had found one another on one or more ‘lists’, and spent many hours weekly discussing birds, their behavior, diets, health, aggression or noise problems, breeding and more.  And, of course, the bird breeders back then assured all of us that there were more than enough ‘good homes’ for the tens of thousands of birds being produced in captivity annually.

“But I, along with some others out in the ether, was beginning to see a dark pattern, rivaling that of cat and dog overpopulation. It loomed, silently… as the number of birds joining my flock grew incrementally.  By 1994, I realized I would have to start placing animals, in order to continue completing my art commissions and fulfilling my gallery obligations. With my career becoming more successful and lucrative, I had hard choices to make….

“By 1995, I was still mulling over the above, but by now had over 40 unwanted or handicapped exotic birds.

In later 1996, with an ever growing number of otherwise homeless animals, I decided to take a possibly permanent hiatus from art and start some sort of parrot rescue.”

In early 1997, with 64 birds in residence, Sybil filed the incorporation papers needed with the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office.  Later that spring, after receiving corporation approval as a non-for-profit, she filed with the IRS to become a 501(c)(3).

“It took almost 9 months to receive our 501,” she explains. “The Oasis had to prove, through documentation, statistics, photography and the answering of numerous questions, the reasons that such a place needed to exist, as well as how we would be different than a for-profit corporation. Today, with the thousands of avian welfare and rescue organizations who have filed for their 501(c)3’s, this process has become far simpler.”

On December 13 1997, with 93 birds in residence, the long-awaited documentation arrived in the mail. At that time, Sybil began bringing in volunteers, and began the process of publicizing the ‘birth’ of the sanctuary to the bird ‘lists’, and although she received some support for the concept and her efforts, for the most part Sybil found herself and The Oasis being accused of hoarding or collecting.