Phoenix Landing promotes interactive parrot wellness retreat in Asheville, 2026

Phoenix Landing packed its 8th Wellness Retreat with the kind of hands-on work parrot people can take straight home to their flocks: training a bird, looking through a microscope, building a playgym, and working through medical and behavior cases with other keepers and professionals.

The two-day retreat ran Saturday and Sunday, May 30-31, 2026, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the University of North Carolina at Asheville’s Sherrill Center, 227 Campus Dr. The event carried Phoenix Landing’s theme, “How Can I Help?”, and the program was framed as a more interactive weekend than a standard lecture series. A Friday night social gathering opened the retreat, and registration options included lunch or no lunch, along with dorm-room lodging and free parking.

Phoenix Landing set registration at $219 with lunch and $179 without lunch, with an early-bird deadline that ran through March 31. The retreat also drew added weight from professional continuing education: the Association of Avian Veterinarians recognized it as a RACE CEU-approved event, helping place the weekend at the intersection of pet-bird ownership and clinical practice.

The agenda stretched across four tracks and covered a wide range of topics that spoke directly to the daily realities of parrots in human care. Sessions included nutrition, respiratory health and disease, feather health, hormones, natural and unnatural training for husbandry behaviors, trick training, radiographs, anatomy, handling techniques, gram stains, ganglioneuritis and bornavirus updates, emergency care, bee venom and propolis, toy-making, foraging tables, pet bird sex education, wild parrot conservation, beaks and feet, behavior constructs, medication techniques, the miracle of flight, spinal column diseases, and how veterinarians approach emergencies.

That mix reflected Phoenix Landing’s broader role as a volunteer 501(c)(3) parrot welfare organization serving Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, North Carolina, and Northeast Florida through adoption and education. Founded in April 2000, with its adoption center opening in 2010, the organization said it had helped 3,619 birds as of May 1, with 65 in foster care and 85 still waiting for help.

Phoenix Landing has also built a steady education pipeline beyond the retreat itself, including self-paced core classes on health, safety, behavior, nutrition, and enrichment. In Asheville, though, the message was more immediate and more communal: parrot care is best learned side by side, with a bird in hand, a microscope on the table, and a room full of people who know exactly why that matters.