City staff recommend against returning birds to Harrison Park
Prospects look dim for restoring the exotic birds to the bird sanctuary in Harrison Park after an outbreak of avian flu led to a mass cull in September 2022, but the city's swans could remain.
Owen Sound's draft master plan for Harrison Park recommends against keeping exotic bird or swans and waterfowl, but instead suggests returning the area of the popular park attraction to its natural state, given the ongoing threat to birds of a severe form of avian flu.
Bird flu forced 96 birds, including geese, ducks and exotics like pheasants, peacocks and peahens to be culled at the sanctuary by Canadian Food Inspection Agency order. It cost the city $44,000 in wages and equipment to manage the outbreak.
The birds' demise prompted people to leave flowers at the sanctuary fence and weighed heavily on park staff who worked with the birds, an appendix to the draft plan acknowledges, which city community services direct Pam Coulter has underscored.
City staff recommend naturalizing the site by adding bird and bat boxes and creating a native habitat with plantings to encourage diverse native species. The plan recommends repurposing the bird barn for indoor storage of parks equipment and demolishing the “hazardous” bird building.
There's an option to keep just the city's five mute swans, which were quarantined and survived the flu. The swans are descendants of six swans presented to mayor Elias Lemon from King George V in 1912.
The community services advisory committee got a look at the draft plan on April 17 and listened to an expert on the bird issue, who warned avian flu remains a threat to any birds kept in captivity in the park.
“It's sad that we can't have, or it's not healthy to have, the poultry there, which was the pheasant pens and so on because that was a big attraction,” said Coun. Marion Koepke, chair of community services committee, which is overseeing the master plan update.
Given avian flu in wild bird populations, “it really isn't feasible to have them (captive birds) there because it's not if they get avian flu, it's when they get it, because it's a guarantee with all fowl that's captive, exotic fowl” she said.
“It's sad though that the community is certainly going to miss it and I certainly will miss it myself,” she said. Mallards and wild swans would likely continue to come and go, and the city might keep the remaining five swans with regal heritage, Koepke said.
But even the future of the corn dispenser is in doubt, she noted, because the bird expert who spoke to the committee advised against the need for it.
Committee members asked for staff to finalize and return the entire master plan to the community services committee for a vote, likely at its May 15 committee meeting. Council could get to vote on it as early as May 27, Koepke said.
Staff's final draft will incorporate information about which recommendations committee members support and their rankings as short-term (1-5 years), medium-(6-10 years) or long-term priorities (11-15 years).
The 131-page draft master plan park update contains many recommendations, which a report to the committee said generally call for actions that “prioritize revitalizing existing assets and features as opposed to creating new assets.”
Owen Sound solicited public feedback last summer by online survey and three public engagement sessions in Harrison Park to help provide direction about the park's master plan. The results provided resounding support for the birds.
Most survey respondents (794 or 82.3 per cent) were in favour of returning birds to the park. Three quarters of respondents, 723, live in Owen Sound, a summary of the survey results show.
The top three reasons people visit the park are to use the trails (825), attend the Festival of Northern Lights (592), and visit the birds, (591). Reinstating/improving the waterfowl and bird area was among respondents' top five themes when asked what service, amenity or feature they'd like to see in the park.
The city consulted an expert who advised against having captive birds in the park again, although he provided options.
Christopher Sharp, a population management biologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, presented his recommendations to the committee last Wednesday via video conference.
Sharp recommended naturalization of the bird sanctuary area and not replacing the birds because a particularly severe form of avian flu remains a threat.
“While we haven't seen as much wild bird mortality since that 2022 year, we are still seeing this virus circulating in wild birds at a prevalence similar to what we saw in 2022,” he said. “So when I say that a risk of a repeat of 2022 is likely, I think that that should be taken quite seriously.”
However, since there are five swans remaining, the city could keep them, discourage reproduction and not replace them as they die, he said.
Sharp said mute swans can live 20 years in captivity and wouldn't fare well if released into the wild. The city's swans are likely of various ages, he said. They could be adopted out to someone with a permit, he added.
Another option, he said, is to focus just on poultry, with no intermingling between them and wild birds or the swans. If the swans are kept they must be fed in an area inaccessible to wild birds, and physically separated from wild birds, possibly by netting.
Coulter, the community services director, asked Sharp to explain the threat even if the pheasants and other fowl were displayed inside the barn. He said they would still be exposed to any virus in goose poop tracked into the barn by visitors.
Coun. Jon Farmer said given the inevitable mixing of domesticated and wild birds, having a naturalized area “makes sense to me” and he asked what that would entail.
Naturalization could include wildflower gardens, Sharp said. “I wouldn't want to see it turned into just a feeding area for mallards and Canada geese.”
Coulter told the committee staff would bring back a plan for naturalization, with or without the swans, if council supports that option. She imagines partnering with community groups to naturalize the area -- a project not budgeted for in 2024, she said by phone later.
The last park master plan update for the 151-acre or 61-hectare park was done in 2002 and many of its recommendations have been implemented. The park sees more than 156,000 vehicle and 225,000 pedestrian visits annually.