Kensington Animal Shelter's Sean Casey Ready for Just About Anything

Last week Sean Casey and his volunteers from his Animal Rescue Shelter in Kensington went looking for a group of vicious pit bull dogs who have been terrorizing dog owners in the Midwood section of Brooklyn. Casey says he has already searched for the wandering dogs, which have already killed one small dog and mutilated another, over thirty times, but he promises, however, not to rest until he has the evil dogs in his custody.

  “The difficulty is that these dogs are potentially roaming,” noted Casey, who says he and his staff have been setting traps and checking the Long Island Rail Road tracks around Brooklyn College two to three times a day. “But we’re pretty confident we’ll have them soon.”

 There is no question that Casey knows his pit bulls. There are dozens of them holed up now in his shelter on East Third Street Shelter near Caton Avenue. Casey says it’s a problem that people just don’t understand these animals.

 “Pit bulls can be the greatest dog in the world or they can be monsters — they can be whatever their owner wants them to be,” said Casey, who owns a pit bull himself. “But in this case, some idiot probably didn’t take his responsibility seriously and this is what we end up with.”

 Don’t think that Casey’s shelter is just for wayward dogs. The chances of finding 20 cats, 40-50 dogs, (the vast majority pit bulls), 10 snakes, 10 turtles, and 20-30 hamsters and guinea pigs at any time in his small animal shelter are high. Once Casey even handled the rescue of an alligator who was abandoned by his owner.

 “A lot of people buy these creatures when they’re young without realizing its going to grow up,” said Casey, who was able to find a safe home for the alligator in Pennsylvania, since it was against the law for the animal to remain in New York.

 Due to New York law Casey must turn down requests to save monkeys, boa constrictors, iguanas, ocelots, sharks and other exotic animals because according to the city’s laws New Yorkers are not allowed to own wild animals, including alligators.

 “He’s like Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but with volunteers,” said Kensington resident Allen Kirson. Casey helped Kirson look for Captain, his beloved parrot, when it flew away. Casey was even willing to climb a ladder standing between two vans to try and reach the bird, which turned out in the end to not be Captain after all.

In Search of Captain: Lost Parrot Inspires Play in Brooklyn

Allen Kirson with Captain

Since last Thanksgiving Allen Kirson, resident of Kensington has been desperately searching for his pet parrot, Captain. His beloved pet for six years, Captain was no ordinary parrot. Known far and wide for her ability to sing arias as well as folk songs, Captain’s lose has inspired Kirson on a true mission of love.

Kirson has searched all over South Brooklyn, plastering neighborhoods with fliers offering a $1,000 reward for Captain’s return. (Non-musical Amazonian parrots are valued at between $500 and $1200.) Last weekend Kirson followed a lead from an animal rescuer that a green-and-yellow parrot matching Captain’s description was spotted high up in a tree in Owls Head Park in Bay Ridge. Unfortunately as soon as Kirson placed a ladder against the tree to get the bird, it flew off. Kirson says that the bird in the tree was not Captain anyway.

His search has led Kirson to consult with Rabbis and even animal astrologers, but so far nothing has helped.

“I’m still shocked she left me,” Kirson said, recalling his green-and-yellow comrade. “We had real conversations. Most pet owners have psychic connections with their pets [and] she was my companion for six years.”

“I feel in my gut that [Captain] is in somebody’s house in the area,” added Kirson.

In an added effort to find his long lost bird Kirson has written a play about his search, called “The Moveable Feast:Searching for Yehuda Bird.”

The play is “60 percent scripted and 40 percent improvised,” says Kirson, who will stage previews of the play on Thursdays at 8 and 10pm at Congregation Sheves Achim on Avenue H in Midwood beginning now until the end of February.

“You lose a pet, you suffer for at least a year,” Kirson said. “I’m going to keep looking for a year. If by next Thanksgiving I haven’t found the parrot, then I’m going to give up.”

Kensington Man Loses Musical Parrot

Calling all Brooklynites! Keep on the lookout for a 25 year old female parrot who will sing harmony with you, and even dance. Going by the name “Captain,” the yellow and green Amazon parrot was sitting on the shoulder of her owner, Allen Kirson, while he was biking down Ocean Parkway in Kensington last Friday when she suddenly decided to take flight.

Kirson is worried that because Captain had her wings clipped, she will not be able to escape from marauding cats and other dangers of the Brooklyn jungle-like neighborhood of Kensington.

Captain is a talented bird who has performed with Kirson at children’s hospitals and homes for senior citizens.

“She was a ham,” Kirson told 1010 WINS’ Steve Sandberg. “If I played my harmonica she would almost always start singing along with that. But her real love was singing harmony — she has perfect pitch.”

If you see Captain, please call the following number: 347-350-5914