The aviary is a non-profit organization run 100 per cent by The Friends of the Aviary volunteers and supported by city funds. Photo Credit: The Hamilton Aviary/X.
The Hamilton Aviary, located just east of McMaster University in Westdale’s Churchill Park, is rehoming their birds after plans for a new building never materialized.
The aviary, which provides a sanctuary to surrendered parrots and finches, is located at 85 Oak Knoll Drive in an aging building leased by the city from the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG).
However, the building is rather dilapidated and no longer suitable to house the birds.
The city did not recommend expensive repairs because an aviary is not part of the RBG’s long-term plans for the site.
The aviary is a non-profit organization run 100 per cent by The Friends of the Aviary volunteers and supported by city funds.
The city puts forward about $57,000 a year to cover annual operating expenses. That will now end.
In 2010, an idea was presented to council to have an aviary built next to the Gage Park greenhouse.
That idea was brought up again in 2020 when the aviary received an anonymous $1 million donation to build a new facility, but council once again rejected the idea as the total construction costs were estimated at $4.5 million.
The $1 million donation was then retracted.
In the end, the aviary was unable to find a new location and has been in the process of rehoming their 18 parrots and six finches.
The aviary also held a final public open house at 85 Oak Knoll Drive on Sunday, June 30, 2024.
The organization said in a press release that they will be changing their “strategic direction, pivoting to a foster-home based organization.”
They say that once all of their current birds are rehomed, they will be running “community programming like educational sessions and hands-on workshops, and start onboarding new foster parents.”
They will also be continuing to fundraise for a new bird sanctuary.
The organization asks that anyone who can help them acquire land or a building email them at info@hamiltonaviary.ca.
As for the birds themselves, some of them are being rehomed with volunteers, nine birds are being transferred to Bird Kingdom in Niagara Falls, and one bird, Rosie, an 18-year-old galah (or rose-breasted cockatoo), has been moved to The Toronto Zoo.
The Hamilton Aviary has a long history, having started in 1927 when Thomas Gould left $3,000 of his estate to the Hamilton Zoological Society “to make the Dundurn Park Zoo more attractive for little children.”
The society remodeled part of the zoo into an aviary.
The aviary was initially a city program before the Friends of the Aviary took over daily care of the birds in 1992.
The birds were moved to 85 Oak Knoll Drive in 1996 because Dundurn Castle was undergoing an extensive historical restoration.
The organization is Canada’s oldest public aviary.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
