Raptor expert leaves bird center on sour note
I found this news in the net… I heard about the news that Jemima will come back to Britain, but didn’t know the real reason… so this is why…
Amid fanfare and a visit from Princess Anne, the International Center for Birds of Prey was established three years ago along the S.C. coast.
But ongoing disagreements over the center’s direction led renowned British raptor expert Jemima Parry-Jones to resign.
She loaded her 170 birds on a charter flight last week to return to England.
The center was created by merging the S.C. Center for Birds of Prey and the National Birds of Prey Center in Gloucestershire, England.
Princess Anne, the sister of Prince Charles, had attended a luncheon to celebrate its creation.
Parry-Jones thought she was going to be a partner but said she felt like an employee, with her experience “thrown out the window.”
“We tried to do something groundbreaking, and it didn’t work out,” said Jim Elliott, who established the S.C. center in 1991.
Parry-Jones did not like the idea that volunteers took care of her birds.
She had used a paid staff in England. The S.C. center largely relies on volunteers.
“I don’t think she ever expected that decisions regarding their day-to-day care … would be taken away from her,” said Stephen Bleezarde, a center volunteer and vice president of the local Audubon Society.
Parry-Jones told center board chairman Bernard Groseclose in 2005 the only way things could work was if she were a co-director.
That didn’t happen and she resigned.
The center, which had been mainly a hospital to care for injured raptors, will open to the public later this year.
It has 70 birds and should open with about 120. Elliott said the center had not been acquiring birds because it was filled with the Parry-Jones’ collection.