{"id":157743,"date":"2026-03-09T11:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T11:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/157743\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T11:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T11:22:16","slug":"mei-mei-the-parakeet-finds-forever-home-after-life-on-run-in-nyc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/157743\/","title":{"rendered":"Mei Mei the parakeet finds forever home after life on run in NYC"},"content":{"rendered":"

This tweet-heart is getting a happy ending.<\/p>\n

A beloved bright-green-and-yellow parakeet named Mei Mei who spent 10 weeks\u00a0living with a flock of sparrows<\/a>\u00a0in the wilds of Central Park now has a forever home.<\/p>\n

The bird officially became a Rhode Island resident Sunday when she moved into her new digs at Foster Parrots sanctuary.<\/p>\n

Mei Mei, a parakeet who survived 10 weeks in Central Park, found a forever home. World Animal Protection<\/p>\n

\u201cMei Mei will live the rest of her life in peace with other rescued parrots at a place that has to meet extremely stringent care standards,\u201d said Liz Cabrera Holtz of World Animal Protection, which worked on her transfer, to The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just an absolutely happy ending for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

The adventurous little bird \u2014 whose name means \u201clittle sister\u201d in Mandarin \u2014 is joining a flock of 130 feathered friends from a diverse range of species including doves, finches and canaries, as well as plenty of other Budgerigar parakeets.<\/p>\n

She could even find love. Budgies mate for life.<\/p>\n

The tiny bird was finally able to make the move after months of quarantining inside the Manhattan apartment of a devoted birder who made a daring capture<\/a> that saved the beautiful fowl from an incoming local cold front.<\/p>\n

Budgies, which are native to Australia, are almost exclusively domesticated in New York because they cannot survive Big Apple winters without a proper environment maintained at around 70 degrees.<\/p>\n

The 1-year-old bird, captured by birder JP Borum, moved to a Rhode Island sanctuary. World Animal Protection<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Mei Mei only suffered a common parasite infection from her time on the lam but has since been treated and is in great condition, according to Holtz.<\/p>\n

The parakeet \u2014 which vets estimate to be a little more than 1-year-old \u2014 was able to evade capture in Central Park for nearly two months by joining a flock of sparrows and adopting their flighty, evasive nature in a tale that gripped the Big Apple.<\/p>\n

Bird lovers at the World Animal Protection were closely following for updates and jumped at the opportunity to support birder JP Borum when she finally dropped a net on Mei Mei on a cool fall morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople often forget these little birds are extremely intelligent, extremely social. Just her ability to survive for 10 weeks was pretty astonishing,\u201d said Holtz, senior programs manager for the organization.<\/p>\n

While Holtz said the group will likely \u201cnever know\u201d how Mei Mei landed in Central Park, it\u2019s safe to assume she once came from a parrot mill and either escaped during transfer or was abandoned by an owner.<\/p>\n

The World Animal Protection, along with Voters for Animal Rights, have been advocating for years for the New York City Council to pass legislation prohibiting the sale of birds in pet stores, much like how the sale of dogs and cats were banned in 2024.<\/a><\/p>\n

World Animal Protection advocates banning bird sales in NYC pet stores, citing parrot mills. World Animal Protection<\/p>\n

\u201cThousands of parrots are confined to dirty, cramped cages before ultimately being transported across the country and sold,\u201d Holtz said.<\/p>\n

\u201cParrots want to be with other parrots. They want to fly! The average cage at a big-box pet store is 27 million times smaller than a parrot\u2019s natural range. <\/p>\n

\u201cMost people are not set up to provide the minimum care, let alone the conditions, where a parrot could thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This tweet-heart is getting a happy ending. A beloved bright-green-and-yellow parakeet named Mei Mei who spent 10 weeks\u00a0living…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1457,17781,57,9,56,63,65,64,65160,58,8993],"class_list":["post-157743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-animals","tag-birds","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-parrots","tag-us-news","tag-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}