A monk or quaker parakeet (this one is a pet).
Posted on 11/17/2005 5:23:04 AM PST by Calpernia
With the blessing of the Connecticut Audubon Society, United Illuminating Company is killing off entire colonies of monk parakeets that have nested on more than 100 utility poles.
Federal agriculture officials say the bright-green South American natives are being captured at night and humanely killed with large doses of carbon monoxide. The birds are considered an invasive species, since they aren't Connecticut natives.
But the president of the Norwalk-based Friends of Animals calls it the sanctioned murder of intelligent avians. Priscilla Feral says taxpayers and UI customers shouldn't have to pay the $125,000 tab.
The eradications began this week in West Haven and will continue in Milford, Stratford, Bridgeport and beyond.
Bird Lovers Defend Conn. Parakeets
HARTFORD, Conn. — Julie Cook came home from work Wednesday night to find utility crews tearing down a parakeet nest from a pole and taking the birds away to be killed.
"I couldn't NOT do anything," said the 37-year-old West Haven woman. "So I started yelling at them and standing under the nest."
Cook was arrested on a breach-of-peace charge.
Bird lovers delighted by the chattering and the brilliant green-and-gray markings of Connecticut's wild parakeets are upset over an effort by United Illuminating Co. to remove 103 large nests from its utility poles and destroy the birds.
The utility, which serves about 320,000 customers in southern Connecticut, says the 200-pound nests of sticks and twigs cause fires and blackouts.
The monk parakeets, which are actually small parrots native to South America, started establishing colonies in the wild across the Northeast about 40 years ago after pet owners accidentally or deliberately released them. There are also colonies in Florida and elsewhere in the South and in the West.
In Connecticut, where the communal nests are home to as many as 40 parakeets each, United Illuminating captures the pigeon-size birds with a net and turns them over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which kills them with carbon dioxide.
That has outraged bird lovers.
"We've lived with these birds since we moved here eight years ago," Cook said. "We love them. They are exotic and beautiful. Me and my neighbors, we feed these birds."
Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals, said: "This is a $125,000 senseless and immoral project. There is no crime that these lovely birds have committed that would warrant their senseless killing."
More than 130 of the pigeon-sized birds have been killed in the first weeks of the eradication project, which began last month. United Illuminating hopes to have all the nests down in January.
Four fires over the past four years and about a dozen outages per year are blamed on the nests, which can cause a short-circuit if built too close to a transformer, utility spokesman Al Carbone said.
"We've gotten calls from people on life support, worried about these nests causing their power to go out," he said. "They are on pins and needles."
The bird lovers are not convinced the parakeets are as bad as the utility says, and contend killing is not necessary — only the nests should be removed.
"These are very smart birds," said Laura Simon, urban wildlife director for the Humane Society of the United States. "If you harass them correctly at the right time of year, they will learn not to build on the poles and will move someplace else."
Florida Power & Light Co. has been struggling with monk parakeets for years. The utility has been working with the University of Florida to discourage nest-building on power equipment, and has tried using stuffed birds of prey, chemical repellents, noise, even odors, all without success. Sometimes the utility takes the nests down and kills the birds, spokeswoman Pat Davis said.
In New York City, the nests are a problem for Consolidated Edison in Brooklyn. The utility removes the nests but does not capture the birds, spokesman Chris Olert said.
"When we get to the nests the birds routinely take off," he said.
Around these parts, they are better know as Quaker Parakeets. They are very bright and hearty birds which are sold in the pet trade. They can mimic human speech. Their call sounds like a beeper pager to me.
When I visited south Florida, there some who had nested in the palm trees along the Atlantic beach.
They are illegal to own in some states because of their ability to escape into the wild and survive. They have no known native predators.
Hawks?
The knight has an interesting thought.
Could he be right?
No, it was underscoreJim that cause that outage...
A monk or quaker parakeet (this one is a pet).
I'm just confused by the reason for this.I think you answered your own question with these previous posts:
Carbone said some of the targeted nests weigh more than 200 pounds and house up to 40 parrots and their young.I think one word can sum it up: "safety".He said that last July, a transformer fire was linked to a bird colony. In 2003, a fire at another utility pole resulted in the high-voltage transformer falling to the ground and exploding.
Well, maybe two words: "Health and safety."
The loss of power for some people CAN spell loss of health (food spoilage, loss of power for milking machines, etc).
Hi Jim!
Have you healed nicely or are you still in pain?
I figured out the bird purge after Fierce Alliance pointed me to the text in post 18
Glad you are better :)
Breederville.com is a community site and marketplace for people in the animal business. It has areas for sales, articles, information, clubs, nonprofit funding and I'm still building it.
Well, thanks. It's always nice to be better as opposed to any other possible conceivable state or situation. Except for one (state, that is), and we will all reach that 'state' eventually, sooner or later, sooner for some and perhaps later for the rest of us mortals!
I for one am glad you are better to be here longer :)
Give that cocketail a whistle for me in the morning. My beardies are Australian too.
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