By Dominic Abassi

Parrots to remain in Nanaimo location past deadline thanks to developer

Nov 30, 2016 | 4:18 PM

NANAIMO — A local developer is stepping up to help the non-profit society that took in more than 500 birds from the World Parrot Refuge in Coombs when it shut down this summer.

A short-term lease with the city of Nanaimo at the old SPCA building on Labieux Road was set to expire on Dec. 1, leaving Greyhaven Exotic Bird Sanctuary scrambling to find a place to move the roughly 50 birds still being housed there. However, Greyhaven’s Jan Robson says the land-owner, Bowen Road Developments, has granted them an extension until mid-February. Bowen Road Developments takes possession of the land that the building is on from the city on Dec. 15.

“It takes a lot of the pressure off…that’s a huge relief,” said Robson. “Concurrent to this we’ve managed to secure a fairly large space in Vancouver, so our hope is to consolidate. We have 120 birds out in Maple Ridge, two or three large groups in foster locations, plus the Nanaimo birds.”

Originally, Greyhaven moved more than 100 birds into the old SPCA building. The facility served as a central location for adoptions on Vancouver Island. Robson says the plan is to start moving the remaining birds out in the new year to the Lower Mainland.

Robson says with the pressure to move out of the Nanaimo building off, their focus moves to ramping up fundraising efforts. She says initially when the Coombs refuge shut down in the summer and the story was in the news, people really responded energetically with donations. As time goes on, Robson says, it falls off people’s radars.

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“The costs have not gone down, in fact they’ve probably gone up,” she said. “We have 1.5 staff at each location…veterinary costs continue, some of the birds have long-term issues that need to be addressed.”

Robson says their small society has invested well over $200,000 into the rescue effort to date. They still have about 300 birds in their care waiting for homes, she says.

“Our hope is that by the time our time there (the Vancouver location) is up, that we will have the bulk of the birds adopted out. We started out with 584 birds. Since August, we’ve managed to find homes for a lot of birds.”

Robson says she’s hopeful people will consider a donation over the holiday season, noting it could be a great gift for a bird lover who has everything.

To find out how to donate or adopt, check out the Facebook page.