WEST NEWBURY — Thanks to the work of Lowell’s Boat Shop apprentices, two rescued peacocks will soon have a new, permanent dwelling at Poore Farm Sanctuary in West Newbury.
Recently, the private farm animal sanctuary run by Bethany Groff Dorau, the executive director of the Museum of Old Newbury, and her husband, took in two peacocks, Pongo and Perdita, named after characters from the movie “101 Dalmations”.
Poore Farm Sanctuary houses a myriad of farm animals, some that have lived happy lives and others that have dealt with trauma.
Unfortunately, Pongo and Perdita had suffered from the latter, and were victims of accidental neglect before being rescued by another animal sanctuary.
However, that sanctuary could not keep the peafowl on a long term basis, and eventually were connected with Poore Farm which had previously taken in another peacock.
Poore Farm agreed to take in the birds and became Pongo and Perdita’s new home, with Groff Dorau providing them with a safe, temporary shelter.
However, Groff Dorau said she knew the pair needed a more permanent space to live in that suited their needs.
So, she reached out to Graham McKay, executive director of Lowell’s Boat Shop in Amesbury, who said his apprentices could build a peacock run for the birds composed of an outdoor pen and a smaller enclosed space.
The partnership turned out to be a valuable one, with Groff Dorau providing the funding for the materials and Lowell’s apprentices crafting the space for free, gaining experience along the way.
“They’re just learning, and this is a different kind of building project for them, which is good. It’s not as fussy as boat building, and so it moves along a lot quicker,” McKay said, of the work apprentices are doing on the peacock run.
For the last two weeks, the apprentices have been working hard on the structure at the boat shop, and this week they will bring what they have constructed to the farm and assemble it on site.
Groff Dorau praised McKay and the apprentices for the work they are doing to help out the birds.
“Graham is a dear friend of mine, and Lowell’s Boat Shop is a wonderful, incredible museum and it does so much for the community,” she said.
McKay said Lowell’s is happy to give back to Poore Farm the way that other organizations have given back to them.
“In our case, certainly in the last several years, I would say the local nonprofits that we do have in this community step up to help each other out quite a bit. And so, when somebody asks for something that we can provide, we try to provide it, and vice versa. And, so there’s a wonderful symbiotic relationship going on with the nonprofit resources in the community,” he said.
Groff Dorau also said many other community members have been generous in this endeavor.
“I feel incredibly lucky, it’s not only Lowell’s, Lowell’s is doing an incredible thing for us. But, folks in the community have pitched in. We have a GoFundMe going on right now to raise money for the materials for the run. So, people have offered support in all kinds of ways,” she said.
Soon, thanks to the apprentices, the peacocks will be able to take the final step in settling into their loving forever home.
“They will have lots of sunshine and lots of fresh air and lots of space to stretch and perch and It’s going to be a great improvement on their current living situation,” Groff Dorau said.