Birds Of A Feather

WALLA WAL­LA – Waits­burg’s Joanna Lanning can breathe a little easier these days.

More than a month ago, the part-time caretaker of the Pioneer Park Aviary in Walla Walla was dusting off her resume after getting a layoff notice from the city. She was starting to make calls and send off emails to organize a massive foster home place­ment effort for the 150 birds at the facility. And she was getting deeply depressed at the thought of emptying the pens and closing down the feathered friends haven after 18 years of working with the birds.

“I have raised a lot of them since they were babies,” said Lanning, who is also known in Waitsburg as the high school long-distance running coach. “It would have been a nightmare.”

But the nightmare before Christmas didn’t material­ize thanks to a new group of community activists who swooped in at the last minute with a rescue plan to keep the aviary from being axed by the city and to try to give it a sustainable long-term future.

Lanning and her boss, city Parks & Recreation Director Jim Dumont, are guardedly optimistic that the new group can do just that.

“The new energy and pas­sion is really exciting,” said Dumont, who has seen the aviary’s ups and downs since he joined parks and rec de­partment more than a decade ago. “The outlook is much brighter.”

But after the first group of aviary activists disbanded following an exhausting two- year push to raise $114,000 and keep the sanctuary open, he cautioned that the new group faces the same tough challenges as volunteer fun­draisers.

“It’s a rigorous chore,” he said.

Like the first group, the new one is also called Friends of the Pioneer Park Aviary, but Lanning and oth­ers say its members have a stronger sense of direction for the future of the facility and include more profession­als with a fundraising or non­profit background.

According to an outline for its 2013-2014 strategic vision, the group has an am­bitious 8-point plan to raise more than $220,000 to oper­( ate and renovate the aviary during the next three years. It includes $28,500 in residual city funds to run the place for the first three months of 2013 (already committed by the city), a grassroots membership drive projected to raise $60,000, corporate asks totaling $75,000, a mass mailing campaign at $20,000, a penny drive at $5,000, the Adopt-A-Bird program at $12,000 and a city utility bill roundup pro- gram estimated to bring in $20,000.

The latter allows bill payers in Walla Walla to roundup their payment for a special parks and rec program. The aviary has been the designated recipient for the past two years and the city council’s parks and rec committee is expected to recommend it remain so for another two years. A full council vote on that designa- tion is expected within about a month or so, Dumont said.

The aviary takes about $55,000 to run each year, in- cluding Lanning’s 25 hours paid caretaker’s work every week. If successful, the fundraising effort would leave a balance of about $55,000 for capital improvements to the aviary, which has an aging net and fence structure. It can also be made more visitor friendly and educational, Lanning and Dumont said.

“Our initial commitment is to raise $12,500 per quar- ter,” according to the group’s strategic plan, whose authors and backers include Walla Walla City Councilman Shane Laib, former manager of the Columbia County Fair.

Laib, whom Lanning said has brought “a lot of great ideas” to the new group, is chair of its board, which aims to organize as a 501 C 3 nonprofit by February.

Dumont said residents of the Touchet Valley, par- ticularly in Waitsburg, have been very supportive dur- ing the first two years of aviary rescue efforts. “For The Birds,” a big bluegrass concert coordinated by Kate Hockersmith and staged at the Waitsburg High School auditorium in 2011 raised nearly $3,000. A number of area residents support the bird adoption program and merchants back the penny drive. Waitsburg-area resi- dent experts on the subject have even helped the aviary with advice on how to deal with predators, he said.

Although Lanning has to keep a professional arms- length distance from fundraising efforts, local publici- ty about her role as caretaker there has helped the rescue efforts’ traction in the valley and may do so again.

“We’re fortunate to have Joanna,” Dumont said, de- scribing her as someone who takes ownership in what she does. “Those (birds) are very important members of her family.”

As though the scepter of losing her job as caretaker weren’t enough, Lanning has had other challenges to deal with during the past two years at the aviary.

Winged predators are a constant threat to the birds. She lost her favorite aviary buddy, Shelly, that way.

Lanning and the Paradise shelduck (a species native to New Zealand) could often been seen chatting it up on the edge of the pond.

Then an otter made its way in and devoured all the koi in the pond. It would still be there if area trapper Ron Mings hand’t helped get rid of it, Lanning said.

So the formation of the new group comes as a wel- come emotional shot in the arm, she said.

“This group is just amazing,” Lanning said. “It’s a real gift that these people have come together.”