The aviary survived closure last year after a bid from the Friends of the Aviary Trust. Photo / Mike Tweed
Ownership of the Rotokawau Virginia Lake aviary will stay with the Whanganui District Council after a community trust failed in its bid to take over.
It is the latest chapter in a process which began in March 2023, when a zoologist’s report said the aviary was “deficient in much of the detail that would be expected in a modern best-practice facility”.
Bird numbers were then cut from 178 to 98, the council voting 7-6 to close the facility during 2024-34 long-term plan deliberations in June last year.
That was stopped after a bid by the Friends of the Aviary Trust the same month.
Three months later, councillors voted 9-4 in favour of handing over the facility to the Friends of the Aviary Trust, with a $20,000 grant to help the group get established.
However, a report from council chief executive David Langford said progress towards transferring ownership and operations had stalled.
The main reason was that in the “tough economic climate”, the trust could not achieve sufficient community fundraising.
At a council meeting on September 16, Langford said taking on staff employment was a big commitment.
“You have the livelihoods of people as part of your responsibility, and you’ve got to guarantee you can fund them and keep them in a job.
“We’ve arrived at a proposal that the council would continue to own and operate the aviary, with a baseline level of ratepayer funding, and officers and the trust would continue a collaborative partnership.”
The trust would focus on fundraising for enhancements and education programmes, Langford said.
Running the aviary cost about $60,000 in unbudgeted expenditure for the 2024-25 financial year.
Langford said the council had a $1.9 million operating surplus in 2024/25, part of which would be used to continue funding the aviary.
A “formal budget line” would be included in the 2026-27 annual plan.
Councillors voted 9-3 in favour of keeping it under council control; the other option was to close it.
Mayor Andrew Tripe and councillors Josh Chandulal-Mackay, Ross Fallen, Kate Joblin, Michael Law, Glenda Brown, Charlotte Melser, Rob Vinsen and Philippa Baker-Hogan were in favour.
Councillors Peter Oskam, Charlie Anderson and Jenny Duncan voted to close it.
Deputy Mayor Helen Craig was absent.
Chandulal-Mackay said he was “suffering from aviary-based fatigue”.
“This issue has been with us, like a little bird on the shoulder, since 2023.
“We have bigger fish to fry around this table.
“Let’s keep the aviary open, and let’s preserve this community facility going into the future.”
Anderson said he was pleased conditions had improved at the aviary but it was still a zoo, which was “inhumane, not natural”. Oskam echoed similar sentiments.
“Cost was never an issue for me,” Oskam said.
“The concept of long-term encagement of animals for entertainment is detrimental to the animals and to society as a whole.”
Langford’s report said issues relating to the liabilities and risks the trust would take on caused negotiation of the lease terms to become protracted.
In June, trust chairman Grant Rogerson told the Chronicle the trust had “a certain amount of money set aside” but the biggest issue was applying for funding.
“Unfortunately, due to the delay, that’s put us outside of charity funding for this year.
“It’s really a matter of seeing what we can find.”
The $20,000 grant was only available once the trust took ownership.
Speaking to the Chronicle this week, Rogerson said even if a deal had been signed, the trust would not be able to apply for charity funding until March next year.
“Then, we’d have to wait two or three months to see if we got it,” he said.
“In terms of wages, you’re talking $600 or $700 a week, and we’d have to buy food and insurance. It was one thing after another.
“Now, we’ll look at what we can do to improve the aviary and sort out education plans for schools - teaching people empathy with wildlife.”
He said public donations to the trust were between $8000 and $9000, but they had slowed in recent months.
Councillors who voted to close the facility in 2024 were Tripe, Anderson, Melser, Chandulal-Mackay, Joblin, Fallen and Oskam, with Law, Brown, Duncan, Baker-Hogan, Vinsen and Craig opposing.
If it had shut, the birds would have been rehomed.
Rogerson said birds had been kept in cages for thousands of years, “back to the Egyptians and the Greeks”.
“The Alexandrine parakeet is named after Alexander the Great,” he said.
“You can’t just say ‘Let’s release them into the wild’, because they’ve never been in the wild.”
The council’s decision had taken a lot of stress off the trust and now whatever money was raised could go directly into improvements, he said.
Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.