GETTING COCKY
Animal Rights Activists Free Pet Birds

by Alexandra Kelly,
The City Weekly - April 1998
Reprinted by permission, The City Weekly, Melbourne

Animal rights activists have long focused on battery hens. But now another feathered friend is attracting attention. If you have a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo in your yard, watch out – it might soon be "liberated".

The FTC’s most recent heist was that of a cocky called 'Mary' who had lived at Gossi Clothing in Clayton North for seven years. Mary’s owner, James Gossi, is devastated and wants her back. "It’s terrible, I was very attached to her" he says. "She talked to me every day."

But FTC founding member Terence O’Keeffe says he has no sympathy for Gossi, as he believes that keeping Cockatoos in small cages constitutes a form of torture. He says his group has taken 'Mary' to a secret country location where she will slowly be resocialised with other cockies until she’s ready to be released into the wild.

If you’ve got a cocky and someone living next to you who doesn’t want it there, watch out. The group gets regular tip-offs from disgruntled neighbours all over Melbourne. To ensure that prospective rescuers know what they’re doing, the FTC even publishes a manifesto and a step-by-step guide.

Although the cocky coalition has several other actions in the works, the furore and police attention surrounding Mary’s flight to freedom means that, like all clever paramilitary operations, it’ll lay low until the fuss dies down.

O’Keeffe, however, is a committed revolutionary. He won’t be deterred by being arrested – he’s been fined several times and done community service for his actions already. He says he will keep breaking the law for the sake of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos everywhere. "I don’t see it as a crime" he says. "It’s a rescue mission."

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