21st BRANT WILDLIFE FESTIVAL IN PARKSVILLE & QUALICUM BEACH

21^st BRANT WILDLIFE FESTIVAL

For 21 years the communities of Parksville and Qualicum Beach have celebrated a nature festival that revolves around a chatty little black sea goose that spends the winter in Baja California, Mexico but each spring flies non-stop from Mexico to the Strait of Georgia where they have a short time to feed on eelgrass, green algae and herring roe in order to regain their weight and strength before making another non-stop flight to the Alaska Peninsula and then to their nesting grounds in Alaska, the Canadian Artic, and beyond.

One can easily observe Brant as they feed among the local bays and sheltered beaches but it is necessary that people watch for and obey regulatory signs restricting walking your dog on the beach and restricting people from walking near feeding Black Brant. The restrictions are important because humans in close proximity cause the Brant to take flight, preventing them from feeding or resting.

Pacific Rainforest Adventure Tours is an event sponsor providing Wild Shores Nature and Heritage tours during the 2-month festival that runs through March and April. In 2010, Gary & Ronda Murdock of Pacific Rainforest Adventure Tours donated proceeds of $1000 to The Nature Trust of British Columbia, the title sponsor of the Brant Wildlife Festival.