Western grebe and peregrine falcon flying neck and neck in #VanCityBird 2016 vote

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      It's Vancouver Bird Week, and there's only four days left to vote in what's arguably this year's most important election.

      The deadline to cast your ballots in the second Vancouver city bird election is Saturday (May 9).

      Handpicked by Vancouver's bird advisory committee—yes, this body actually exists and its seats are filled by humans—the candidates are four rare birds: Peregrine Falcon, Western Grebe, Barn Owl, and Barn Swallow.

      When I checked the online voting results today (May 5), Western Grebe (51,559 votes) had a slight lead over Peregrine Falcon (50,909 votes).

      Barn Owl (34,330 votes) and Barn Swallow (15,270 votes) were way back in the third and fourth positions, respectfully.

      (Disclosure: these numbers were gleaned after I voted three times for Barn Swallow and once for Western Grebe today, and multiple times for both birds on previous days.)

      Voting kicked off on April 15. 

      Physical ballot boxes—for real—are located at Central Library, Hillcrest Centre, Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre (site of the Bird Friendly Design Guidelines exhibition), Stanley Park Ecology Society, and VanDusen Botanical Garden.

      The winner will succeed Black-Capped Chickadee as city bird in 2016.

      Comments

      1 Comments

      LMAO

      May 5, 2015 at 3:01pm

      This entire story shows just how willing our city government is to waste money on absurdities such as this bird contest. Kudos for covering this vital issue. Vision have spent more each year on the city propaganda department, adding somewhere around 20 new positions and issuing pablum like this on a regular basis. The stunning thing is how eagerly the Straight publishes this garbage.

      How about a story about our delayed bike sharing program? Remember that? We were supposed to have it by now, after all we were promised it for the spring of 2013 if not earlier. Barely any news about the bike share scam aside from the Courier in the last while but that is pretty common when it comes to promised programs that are years late be they civic or regional.

      So when you reveal the highly anticipated results of this vital "election" can you perhaps spare a paragraph to comment about the bike scheme? Maybe even ask one of the city employees wasting our money with this pointless effort at distraction what she/he knows about the bike thingy. Please? That is apparently what journalists used to do before they could so easily reprint press releases and get into the spirit of government wasting money on bird election.