The bright green and red parakeet now known as Billy once soared with the rest of the wild parrots of San Francisco. The 300-some birds are a natural wonder of the city, heard squawking over Telegraph Hill or seen pecking at backyard berries and bird feeders. In 2023, the Board of Supervisors named them the official animal of San Francisco after they defeated the sea lions in a Chronicle poll.
But urban living has its hazards. A good Samaritan found Billy collapsed on a fire escape in 2018, poisoned by bromethalin, a neurotoxin used as rat poison that’s sometimes accidentally ingested by wild birds.
The person contacted Mickaboo, a Bay Area nonprofit founded to rescue and care for pet parrots. Mickaboo volunteers transported Billy to a veterinary hospital in San Jose called For the Birds, where he was placed on a feeding tube and given antibiotics…