Jimmy Longbottom Is Going Quackers

While the pandemic forced him out of the craft beer industry and into his own nonprofit animal rescue, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
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Jimmy Longbottom and Kiwi the duck share a couple of cold ones.

Photo by Jeremy Kramer

Second Careers

From: Craft Beer Buyer
To: Bird Rescuer

When he was in the craft beer business, Jimmy Longbottom never could have imagined he would establish one of the region’s only domestic waterfowl rescues. “I was the craft beer buyer for a chain of Mellow Mushrooms,” he says, “then I worked in local breweries up until COVID.”

A lifelong bird lover, he began raising some pet chickens and ducks that were donated to him, and shared their adventures often on social media. The posts grabbed the attention of people looking for rescues for their own ducks. “I just kept saying ‘yes’ to people asking me to take the ducks. Before you know it, I had to come out and lease [the farmland] because I was running out of room.”

The pandemic was a turning point for Longbottom. Furloughed when bars and breweries closed, he decided to make the best of it. Longbottom cashed out his 401(k) and committed to rescuing ducks full-time.

As the world emerged from lockdown and businesses began opening their doors to customers once more, he would pick up bar shifts at different breweries—but that soon proved difficult. “I now have nine ducks that need oral medication every 12 hours, so that makes it impossible for me to be an employee,” he says.

To help with fund-raising, Longbottom registered the Longbottom Bird Rescue as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in hopes that the distinction would attract larger donors and bring in more resources through grants. While he isn’t paid for his work, Longbottom hopes that down the line, donations will allow him to become an official employee and eventually buy a permanent piece of land for the rescue.

His previous colleagues from the world of craft beer have been a great help in raising money and awareness for Longbottom Bird Rescue, allowing Longbottom to show the animals to the public. “We did a tour of breweries two years in a row,” he says. “We went to 50 breweries in the region, where I just traveled around with the ducks and did education programs inside of breweries.” He also gets the chance to bring the ducks to farmers’ markets, schools, and summer camps.

Since switching from connoisseur of beer to savior of birds, Longbottom’s income has shrunk to nearly nothing. Running a nonprofit with such energy-intensive work takes up most of his time these days—but the ducks are his life, and he’d have it no other way. “I don’t make any money. Sometimes I just eat bologna sandwiches every day. But I’m certainly a lot more content than I was doing something I wasn’t that great at or wasn’t passionate about,” he says.

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