No regrets says Avian Ark founder Kit Chubb

May 26, 2011

Long-time Verona resident Kit Chubb is well known in the community as the founder of the Avian Ark, more formally known as the Avian Care and Research Foundation. The Ark was a charitable foundation and hospital for wild birds that she and her late husband Robin founded at their Verona residence in 1978, and ran as volunteers for 28 years until it closed in 2006.

Kit is a long-time animal and nature enthusiast, and the Avian Ark came about when she began banding birds as a volunteer with local author and bird authority Helen Quilliam. As Kit recalls in her 1991 book The Avian Ark: Tales from a Wild-bird Hospital, “With my untrained fingers, I unfortunately wrenched some wing muscles of a tiny ovenbird when I was untangling it, and full of remorse I asked permission to take it home and care for it…the Ark was launched soon after.” The book is just one of many that Kit authored and illustrated about her life spent caring for countless species of wild birds.

Kit's husband Robin, who was an architect, helped build the sanctuary at the couple’s Verona home. It included a number of aviaries, and the couple was joined by over 160 volunteers whom Kit refers to as “Flying Angels”, who delivered injured birds to her doorstep.

Over close to three decades Robin and Kit treated many species of birds, including herons, which are by far the most difficult to treat due to their incredibly shy dispositions and fragile physiology; loons, ducks, grebes, hawks, eagles, one raven, woodpeckers, owls and even one pelican, who proved to be a very playful patient.

Some of the most seriously injured birds had to be euthanised, but many others were treated, rehabilitated, banded and returned to the wild. Kit took meticulously detailed x-rays of those who did not survive. Many of the x-rays are now housed in a collection at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa and are available to anyone interested in studying them.

The Ark closed in 2006, the year after Robin passed away from cancer and now Kit has moved into a new phase of her life, which keeps her pretty much bed-ridden. As a result of her long-time work with birds, she has developed pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable lung disease that makes breathing difficult and for the last year she has been relying on oxygen.

She first noticed a problem with her lungs in 1988 and says that it probably started from breathing avian particles in the air and slowly worsened as years went by. Doctors at that time informed her that there was no cure for the disease and did suggest that she consider stopping her work with birds. She recalled being given that advice but says, “I just couldn't stop what I was doing. I loved it too much. I was writing and lecturing at the time and the fact is that back then, doctors did not know just exactly what it was that was causing the problem. I decided to continue on with my work.”

In visiting Kit at her bedside, I found that what is most inspiring about her is her grace, truthfulness and surprising acceptance of this phase in her life. “I have no regrets at all. In life you have to be able to shut the door behind you and accept changes. This is a new phase for me and though it might sound strange to most, I am enjoying it. It is a chance to get close to each of my five children like I never have before.”

Kit now spends a lot of her time with her family, as well as reading, and when we talk she tends to speak about life’s bigger questions and principles, the ones she has tried to live and work by. “I really believe that we should honour all of the life around us and the fact that every creature has its life to live just like we do; they have to mate, eat, make homes for themselves and we really need to recognize that,” she says.

In sickness, as in health, Kit Chubb continues to demonstrate a passion for ideas she believes in and to live a life that aims to recognize, honour, and celebrate all forms of life on this earth.

A dozen of Kit’s last published drawings have been included in a book published by the Royal Ontario Museum called Biological Notes on an Old Farm: Exploring Common Things in the Kingdom of Life by retired Curator Emeritus Dr. Glenn B. Wiggins.

For more information visit www.kitchubb.ca. Her tales are sure to inspire readers to reconsider the many winged creatures that we are so lucky to share our world with.