The Kangaroo Creek Farm is open for the season at its new Kelowna location on Old Vernon Road.

(CARLI BERRY / iNFOnews.ca)

The owner of Kelowna’s Kangaroo Creek Farm is keeping the parrots off the premise for the foreseeable future due to a highly pathogenic avian influenza virus that has been killing birds.

The Kangaroo Creek Farm was notified that another farm three kilometres away is suspected to have birds with the H5N1 avian influenza virus, owner Caroline MacPherson said, adding the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is performing tests on the birds.

Today, April 29, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced that a small poultry flock in the Regional District of Central Kootenay has been infected with the virus that has been spreading in poultry and wild birds across the country. The infected premises has been placed under quarantine and the Ministry of Agriculture has notified producers within a 12-kilometre radius of the positive test results.

One flock has already been affected by the avian flu in Enderby and another was recently reported in Kelowna.

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The farm typically has 12 parrots but even if they do bring the parrots back to the site they're not going to let people touch them, MacPherson said. The birds are currently quarantined at the former Kangaroo Creek property in Lake Country and the earliest they’ll be back is in June, pending further bird flu outbreaks.

They have not encountered any dead birds on their property, she said.

The Ministry of Agriculture is urging owners of small or backyard flocks to eliminate or reduce opportunities for poultry to encounter wild birds, to reduce human access to the flock, and increase cleaning, disinfection and sanitization of all things (including clothing and footwear) when entering areas where flocks are housed.

Seven wild birds that died between April 20 and 27 have also tested positive for H5 strains of avian influenza. The seven include three snow geese and one Canada goose in the Vanderhoof area, and individual bald eagles from Lac la Hache (near 100 Mile House), Bowen Island and Vancouver.

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These cases follow a similar finding in a bald eagle in Delta this month and one in Vancouver in February.

The Kangaroo Creek Farm was recently granted another temporary use permit to continue operations at its location on Old Vernon Road in Kelowna until April 25, 2025. The permit was approved during the last Regional District of Central Okanagan board meeting, April 25.

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