Aviary Gets Its Ducks In A Row

WALLA WALLA - If there were ever a "bird whisperer" in the Touchet Valley, Huntsville's Joanna Lanning would be it.

For 16 years, Lanning has devoted her weekdays to the Pioneer Park Aviary in Walla Walla, where she manages the daily affairs of 200 feathered friends and dotes over them like a mother over her toddlers.

Her office at the compound has depictions of birds on every imaginable item: posters, tiles, pillows, place mats, carvings, trays, clocks, T-shirts, paintings and drawings.

The ring tone on her cell phone is a recording of her favorite pet waterfowl, Shelly, the New Zealand Paradise Shelduck with whom she talks up a small storm around one of the two ponds where most of the birds gather.

"I'll probably have my ashes spread here," Lanning says, only half joking. "This isn't just a job. This is a part of my life."

For nearly a decade and a half, her "life" at the aviary was as steady and predictable as the changing of the seasons in the 58-acre city park that surrounds it.

But since the City of Walla Walla first began eying the parks department facility two years ago as a nonessential line item to cut from its budget, coming to work for five hours every day has become an emotional roller coaster for Lanning.

"It's been horrible," she says about the most recent ups and downs in her hopes for the aviary's future. "But I try to keep a real positive attitude. Now people understand that this area is getting hit with cuts, and that the city can't do it all."

The first "down" came with the news earlier last year that the city had decided to no longer fund the aviary because of a significant citywide revenue shortfall.

"I felt like the floor was pulled from under me," Lanning said.

This was followed by the first "up," when word came that the Walla Walla Senior Center might cover the aviary's annual operating budget of $55,000 with a surety bond. But Lanning had that sinking feeling again after the center's residents voted down the funding proposal, and aviary enthusiasts were left scrambling for a new rescue plan.

In an effort to give the aviary and its supporters time to seek alternatives, the city has committed to underwriting its operations for the first three months of 2011, said Craig Keister, fundraising chair for Friends of the Aviary.

So far, with an appearance at a weekend kiosk on Main Street in Walla Walla and other outreach to grassroots donors, Friends of the Aviary has raised about $10,000. Keister's goal is to get enough to run the facility for the remaining three quarters of the year, then start going after institutional charities for grants.

"We've been flying by the seat of our britches so far," he said, explaining they have used the city's tax-exempt status to make public donations tax deductible. "We're not a real organization yet, just a group of dedicated people."

These "dedicated people," he explained, believe the aviary is a regional asset that not only educates hundreds of children each year about their native natural environment, but also forms part of the reason why Walla Walla is "a great place to be."

Deer, elk, bears and other wildlife roamed the park in the 1940s. Pigeons were added in the 1950s, and pheasants made their debut in the 1960s. The current aviary was created in the early 1980s, when the Lioness Club raised $90,000 to have it built.

"Interest in the project was readily aroused in the community as it could foresee this valuable asset to our city park, which has become known throughout the state of Washington for its charm and beauty," according to a project description from that time.

Craig, a volunteer who owns a custom-made furniture store in the city, said he comes to the park every day to walk his dog and finds the aviary a "point of serenity" in his life. To kids, a visit to the aviary and a tour of the netted ponds with Lanning make for fond memories of something unique to Walla Walla that makes them come back as adults, he said.

For travelers, the aviary fits easily in an itinerary that includes wine tasting, bike riding through historic neighborhoods and shopping.

The community's recognition about the importance of the bird park makes it possible to raise grassroots money for it, Keister said. "So far, we've taken a shotgun approach. It's important that we give everybody a chance to participate in its existence."

The response has been encouraging. Dozens of families who visited the kiosk at the Land Title Plaza, stuffed singles, fives, tens, twenties and even $100 bills in the jar, he said.

Another downtown "Meet & Greet" is scheduled for 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 8, followed a week later by "It's For The Birds," a live and silent auction at the Elks Lodge (6 p.m.). Tickets are $10. The event will feature music by local band Bizarre Love Triangle.

The Lioness Club has placed a "Save The Aviary" donation can at the Dayton Mercantile, while Lanning said he hopes to approach the Waitsburg Hardware & Mercantile to place one there as well.

One initiative to be announced at the Elks Lodge fundraiser is an Adopt-ABird program, under which up to four individual grassroots donors can help fund the care of one of the aviary's birds. Businesses would be able to adopt one of the 12 pens in which they live.

If successful, the adoption program would raise $28,500 annually for the aviary, organizers said.

Lanning, who gives ideas and moral support but otherwise stays in the background when it comes to fundraising, hopes it works, for the sake of her future at the aviary but much more for the sake of the birds themselves.

The part-time running coach for the successful Waitsburg-Prescott cross country team has been around animals all her life.

Raised in Beaverton, Ore., a town that was still rural at the time, Lanning grew up in a home filled with them: cats, dogs, guinea pigs, hamsters, snakes, you name it.

After high school, she pursued and graduated with a major in journalism and a minor in animal science from Oregon State in 1978.

Three years later, she found herself at the Pendleton Roundup, where she watched a bull rider in an amateur rodeo. That bull rider was Mark Lanning from Waitsburg, whom she married in 1982. He has a local business as a tree trimmer.

Their household in Huntsville looks like Dr. Doolittle's farm, though possibly even more diverse than the one she grew up in. The family has dogs, cats, chickens, horses, sheep, a donkey, a mule and a pot-bellied pig they brought to church one day.

Son Owen, 14, still lives at home, while daughter Marci Jo, who graduated from Waitsburg High School in 2006, was married in October and is studying water resources management at Walla Walla Community College.

With love of animals and academic background, Lanning brought a new kind of professionalism to the aviary, which now has a stronger focus on native bird species and is all about educating visitors.

The ponds have 60 different kinds, including ornamental pheasants, waterfowl, quail, chukar and doves.

Lanning's job makes its own contribution toward the aviary's sustainability. Every year, she raises about 100 birds that she ships to Internet customers (breeders, hobbyists Imbert Matthee photo and zoos) throughout the country: ruddy ducks to Louisiana, Elliott pheasants to Portland, and so on.

That breeding program, which offers 28 species of ducks, 10 species of pheasants, three types of geese and two types of peafowl, brings in as much as $4,000 per year, she said. Prices range from $25 for a fulvous whistling duck to $250 for an emperor goose. She has sold about 1,000 birds since she began the program nine years ago.

And she has been willing to make sacrifices to stay with her flock. In 2009, she tooka5percentpaycut,and her salary's cost-of-living adjustment disappeared. But that didn't hurt as much as the prospect this past summer that she may have to part from the birds, whose stories she regularly shares with children from the Tri Cities, Pendleton, Walla Walla, Waitsburg, Dayton and many other regional school districts.

Lanning isn't alone in running the aviary, a passion she shares with longtime volunteers like Jean Pennington and helpers from various local groups, including college students, professors, churches and youth clubs.

But she's probably the most co-dependent bird lover among them.

"One of my biggest problems is that I like to make pets out of many of the birds," Lanning wrote in an article that ran in the Game Bird and Conservationists' Gazette four years ago.

"I get very attached to them," she said.

For more information about donating to the aviary or attending its benefits, contact Craig Keister at 509- 520-5077.

Ways To Support Friends of the Aviary:

Sat. Jan. 8: Land Title Plaza, Walla Walla, Meet & Greet. 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.

Sat. Jan. 15: Elks Lodge fundraiser. 6 p.m.

Dayton Mercantile:

Look for

"Save The Aviary"

Lioness Club can.