Originally founded in Sheffield in1994, little did the owner, Steve Nichols, realise what he was embarking upon when, with a few tame parrots, he would visit various children's hospices and let the children play and learn about these wonderful birds.

Unfortunately though, the possible risk of introducing any infection into such places meant that Steve wasn't able to continue this valuable service, very much to the disappointment of all those involved. So he did the next best thing and after some thought decided to construct a place where these children could come and visit the parrots.

After many years of studying the behaviour of parrots, Steve founded the organisation, Parrot Line, with a view to initially helping parrot owners residing in his local Sheffield area.

Initially created as an advisory service taking telephone calls, Parrot Line soon grew into a national call centre, and has assisted people and their parrots from all over the globe. Parrot Line now takes more than 100,000 email enquiries and over 30,000 telephone calls on an annual basis. Within 12 months of Parrot Line starting, the work Steve was doing was quickly recognised by all the animal welfare bodies such as the RSPCA, RSPB and the Police Forces nationwide.

After 2 years of intense work, covering over 100,000 miles, visiting over 200 people and assisting over 600 parrots, Parrot Line and Steve started receiving a lot of media interest. It was after one of these interviews with The News of the World newspaper that Steve was approached by a QC saying he thought Parrot Line ought to apply for charitable status so that they could get more financial aid, along with internal help in running the organisation.

UK Charitable status was attained early in 1997 and a committee of trustees was elected.

The next natural step after forming the charity was to create a rescue service and help the neglected or unwanted parrots that he came across around the country, by offering them some form of rehabilitation. After viewing over 150 potential sites and travelling over 10,000 miles he finally located a site in Lincolnshire . It was a flat piece of land with not one plant on it, not even grass but also had no houses nearby. This was to become The National Parrot Sanctuary.

Finally in 2003, having attained a Zoo Licence, the sanctuary was in a position to open the doors to the general public, and as to be expected, more birds! 4 years on and with over £500,000 of investment, the sanctuary is constantly building and improving the facilities.

It is now the only dedicated Parrot Zoo in Europe and holds the largest and most diverse collection of parrots to be found anywhere in the UK.