Over the last few years, the City of Vancouver has engaged in a flight of whimsy known as the City Bird Contest. Each spring, average citizens could vote on a selection of avian warriors vying for the city’s official bird title, the city could educate the electorate on the various birds that call Vancouver home and media outlets could petulantly point out that the winning bird had received more votes than the mayor in the last election. It was a win-win situation.
Somewhat.
As K&K has made abundantly clear, past winners of the City Bird Contest have not been to our liking, particularly last year’s winner — the douchey Peregrine Falcon.
To quote ourselves, the Peregrine Falcon is like “the Axe Body Spray of the bird world.”
“It’s like Yaletown with feathers… Imagine a developer who buys every single heritage building in the city, demolishes them and replaces them with luxury condo towers, except those towers are nests, and the developer has a beak.”
So what about this year’s official bird? Well, here’s the thing. The city didn’t hold its annual springtime contest this year. A colleague contacted the city, and this was their response:
“The City Bird contest is being re-evaluated by the Bird Strategy committee and partners at City and Park Board. We are looking at various options, including a model that would see an election — possibly next year sometime — for a permanent City Bird rather than a new one elected every year. This would be timed to dovetail with a major ornithological conference in Vancouver in 2018. Details are still being worked out and we are happy to update you as we get closer to the date.”
All of which is fine and dandy, and props for using the word “dovetail” (intentional or not) in the same sentence as the city’s “Bird Strategy committee.” But let’s not fool ourselves. Vancouver has been living under the reign of the Peregrine Falcon for a year and a half now. Do you think it’s a coincidence that in that time Vancouver real estate has soared to new heights, the city’s vacancy rate has shrunk to microscopic levels and affordability has become a bad punchline to a grim joke?
It is time for the city to declare the Peregrine Falcon’s days as City Bird over. And in its place, we would like to humbly suggest appointing the Red Tailed Hawk. If not, then leave the perch of city bird unoccupied and let nature take its course. This kind of winged tyranny must come to an end.
That is all.
