Peachland POST YOUR COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
The week of March 28, 2025
FIRE MITIGATION First Nations management could help protect Peachland P.6
CUTTING CABLE Going only with streaming services creates angst P.8
ABOUT TOWN Find out what’s going on and where it’s happening P.11
Visit our website at peachlandpost.org • Vol. 1 Issue 13
RISING COSTS 2022 estimate for Peachland’s new firehall now not enough P.3
COMMUNITY
BIRDS ON A WING
Peachland parrot sanctuary continues to be a labour of love By Jeff McDonald
N
Jeff McDonald photo
Avian flu prevention measures mean that Pepper is the only bird you can meet right now at Parrot Island.
33 YEARS
Staff Reporter
o one ever told Ray Parkes that running a parrot sanctuary would be easy. But no one said it would be this tough, either. Since 1997, Parkes and his wife Val have been caring for the exotic birds at the Parrot Island sanctuary located on their property on MacKinnon Road in Peachland. But the COVID-19 pandemic was a blow, and the current wave of Avian influenza has been a gut punch too. Both diseases, one that impacted humans and one that is currently affecting birds and cattle in North America, has changed how the sanctuary operates – or doesn’t operate, at least as a Peachland tourism attraction. Parkes estimates that on a busy summer day, a couple of hundred people used to visit the sanctuary to enjoy the colourful animals and to learn something about them. At times, a hundred birds lived at Parrot Island, significantly more than the current count of 28.
“It was good for Peachland because we attracted a lot of tourists to town,” he said earlier this week over the screech of parrots at the sanctuary. “And it was nice helping to educate children that parrots should be left in the wild, that they are not supposed to be in cages for people’s enjoyment.” That might sound like a contradiction, the fellow who has had a hundred birds in his care saying that they shouldn’t be owned by humans. But Parkes was, and is, only a caretaker for the highly intelligent creatures because when they’re born in captivity, they can’t go back into the wild, and he’s fiercely opposed to the practice of breeding parrots in captivity for sale. “It’s so sad what we’re doing to them,” he said. “The last number I heard is that there’s about seven million unwanted parrots in North America.” Parkes became interested in birds as a child in England when he spent time at a sanctuary run by an older gentleman who left Parkes the birds when he passed. He emigrated to Canada and worked in Kitimat before an industrial accident left him SEE PARROTS PAGE 7
Come on down to celebrate our
33rd ANNIVERSARY!
Enjoy some coffee, snacks and enter our draw for some great prizes
JOIN US FROM 10 TO 4, APRIL 1ST
No foolin’!
Johnston Meier Insurance
5872 Beach Ave., Peachland
250-767-2500 1-877-767-2510