The hopes of a group of dedicated volunteers came true recently when a pair of "architecturally challenged" eagles successfully hatched two chicks at Jericho Beach Park.
What made the birth of these eaglets special is the chicks were hatched on a man-made nesting platform built last year. The volunteers, with the help of the park board, built the platform after the eagle pair, nicknamed Bert and Ethel, struggled to keep a nest in the unstable cottonwood trees they continued to choose as a base.
The volunteers, including Corby Stanley, Ron Gruber, Brian Whittingham and Marian Coope, went out on a limb to help after watching the eagle pair's nest disintegrate year after year, leaving their eaglets stranded in trees or in need of rescue from the ground.
Stanley told me last year that the birds had been nesting in a grove of cottonwood trees at Jericho Beach instead of in the sturdier Douglas firs nearby. Each year, due to a combination of the eaglets' increasing weight, their rambunctious behaviour and the occasional windstorm, the eagles' nest had fallen down around them. That happened in March 2011 when the nest the eagles began building at the end of 2010 fell apart. One eaglet needed to be rescued and was rehabilitated at the Delta-based Orphan Wildlife Rehabilitation Society. It was successfully released back to the family in August 2011. Congratulations to these volunteers and the park board for this success.
CIVIC STATUS SUPPORT
I've written several stories in the past regarding non-profit groups seeking civic status for their large events, including the Vancouver Pride parade, Vaisakhi and the Chinatown Spring Festival Parade.
On Wednesday morning, city council voted to launch a new civic designation for the Vancouver's largest and best-known annual parades and celebrations, which will provide "substantial new funding support" by way of policing and maintenance to those events.
For the first time the city will have clear criteria for support for annual events that have the ability to draw large crowds and have a proven economic track record. According to a city staff report, the new designation also establishes a stronger framework to improve the financial stability of these large parades and events, with streamlined and professional event planning and consistent funding criteria. That criteria includes the evaluation of the event's economic impact, its reflection of the city's diversity, its recent average attendance and whether it's a component of a larger city-wide celebration.
In a recent story I wrote, Ray Lam, general manager of the Vancouver Pride Society, said a study completed in 2001 determined annual Pride Week festivities, including the popular parade, brought in more than $30 million in economic gain annually. Lam estimates the move to civic status will save the society between $60,000 and $75,000 a year.
sthomas@vancourier.com
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