Kim Westad, Times Colonist
Published: Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Lunds Auctioneers has auctioned off thousands of items over the years, but Tuesday night's auction was a first -- 24 parrots.

Potential buyers were warned in advance by the auction house that the birds have extensive needs, require a large amount of care and are definitely not impulse buys, said Lunds owner Peter Boyle. "Anyone buying them should have the time and the knowledge to deal properly with them."

The auction house received nearly100 e-mails inquiring about the birds, who were not physically on site but were auctioned off based on their photos. The 17 juvenile Australian Kings, two pairs of bonded Australian Kings, one Timor cockatoo and one pair of breeding "Green Wing" Amboina are being kept at a Lake Cowichan facility.

Many people were unhappy about the birds being auctioned off, including the World Parrot Refuge, a non-profit society in Coombs that tried to buy as many as they could, said John Seeland, operations manager of World Parrot Refuge.

Lunds was instructed by the public guardian to auction off the birds, originally owned by a breeder who died 11/2 years ago. The breeder had no will so her estate went to the public guardian to administer.

The public guardian sought out buyers for between 12 to 16 of the birds, but couldn't find buyers for the remaining birds and decided to go to auction.

By the end of the night, all of the birds had been sold. "They all went to good homes," said Boyle. Multiple buyers paid a total of about $6,000 for the parrots.