Owen Sound could be doing away with its bird barns at Harrison Park.
And the six swans saved during a 2022 avian influenza outbreak, which are direct descendants of swans gifted from King George V in 1912, could also be the last in the bloodline to call Harrison Park home.
Several recommendations concerning the bird sanctuary area are included in the city’s draft Harrison Park Master Plan update. The draft plan was discussed in committee recently, and will be coming to council soon.
The city has been trying to figure out a path forward for potentially repopulating the bird sanctuary area, after nearly 100 birds and waterfowl were euthanized in September 2022 to contain an avian flu outbreak.
More than 82 per cent of people who filled out a survey for Harrison Park’s master plan update supported repopulating the area at the park.
But the plan recommends moving on from the outdoor bird barns — which featured peacocks, pheasants and other exotic birds — and repurposing them as storage sheds. They were a popular attraction for kids and other park strollers, but public access to them has been closed since the avian flu outbreak.
The bird barn structures at Harrison Park (back of image), which have been closed off to public access since avian flu outbreak in 2022. (Matt Hermiz/Bayshore Broadcasting News)
Even the royal swans saved during the outbreak may be headed for a new destination, or updated living quarters at Harrison Park.
City staff’s proposal comes from a recommendation from Chris Sharp, a population management biologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada. He advised against reintroducing captive birds — including swans — and to instead naturalize the site.
“This option eliminates any risk of (avian influenza) that would require depopulation and allows residents of Owen Sound an accessible park to interact with nature,” Sharp explains.
Sharp told community services committee members the intermingling between poultry, captive birds and wild birds leads to the spread of avian influenza. He says since 2021 there’s been a highly pathogenic outbreak across North America.
“However, if there is a strong desire to continue to have the swans, I would recommend that you discourage reproduction and once the birds pass away, they are not replaced,” Sharp says.
Council hasn’t approved anything yet. A lot still needs to be figured out, and there’s a lot of questions about what the bird sanctuary area of Harrison Park could look like moving forward. Will there be swans? Will the swans be in a new enclosure? Will there be any fences around the ponds?
Owen Sound’s director of community services Pam Coulter says if council approves moving ahead with the option to “naturalize” the space, then staff would do more work to figure out what that would entail.
“With or without the swans, we would do further work and bring back a plan on what does naturalizing this space look like,” Coulter explains in committee.