FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Oscar might be the world's ugliest bird.
The cockatoo that has lived at the Humane Society of Broward County for the past 12 years has almost no feathers, and that has made the bird a recent Internet sensation. Oscar is actually a female cockatoo. The bird suffers from a disease, called beak and feather disease, that causes feathers to grow deformed and irritating, so the bird plucks them.
"It's more of a skin irritation," Mary Steffen of the Broward County Humane Society said. "Their feathers irritate their skin, so they pluck them out."
NBC 6's Ari Odzer said the first time he saw Oscar, he was startled and couldn't figure out what he was looking at.
She looked like Daffy Duck after the dynamite blows up in his face, Odzer said.
Oscar just has a halo of scraggly feathers around her head. The rest of her skin is wrinkly and purplish.
Without her feathers, Oscar shivers a lot because she has no insulation, so she's got her own heat lamp.
Officials at the humane society said Oscar loves to have visitors. She still calls out to visitors, "Pretty bird!"
When asked how it felt to have a naked bird on his arm, Odzer said, "Well, I've never had a naked bird on my arm before. She seems to be very 'talon'-ted."
Oscar has been making appearances in every South Florida newspaper and all over TV.
"We do a lot of tours for kids," Steffen said. "We bring them in here expecting them to be fascinated by surgery and what we're doing in here. Inevitably, they're all around Oscar's cage taking pictures and going, 'Oh my God!'"
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