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Video length: 4 min
Animals: behind the scenes of the Bird Park during winter
Animals: behind the scenes of the Bird Park during winter – (France 2)
In Ain, the Villars-les-Dombes Bird Park is closed during the winter. On site, the keepers take care of the 2,000 birds in the park.
In winter, the Bird Park of Villars-les-Dombes (Ain) closes for four months. Even without an audience, forty people are still employed, including around twenty trainers. We must continue to protect and feed 2,000 birds and 250 species. In the heart of winter, veterinarian Éric Bureau and his teams finish vaccinating the park’s 2,000 birds. They are all chipped and identified. “It’s the influenza vaccine, against avian flu. It’s a vaccine that we’ve been doing since 2006. (…) We vaccinate them to protect them”indicates the veterinarian.
An injured stork collected in the 1970s
The birds remember everything and the keeper comes into contact with all the animals, even the most recalcitrant. At the end of the 1970s, an injured stork was entrusted to the Bird Park. She could no longer fly, and was placed in an enclosure. The following year, a wild stork stopped by and they nested together. The Dombes parks are a favorite stopover for migratory birds and ornithologists note the changes in nature.
