http://www.connpost.com/news/ci_3225942
Pole-dwelling birds facing wrath of UI
KEN DIXON dixon.connpost-at-snet.net
The United Illuminating Co., with support from federal and state officials, including the Connecticut Audubon Society, has begun an eradication program to destroy monk parakeet nests and kill off entire bird colonies.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday that at least 47 of the large, bright-green tropical birds were humanely killed this week in a procedure that exposes them to large amounts of carbon dioxide.
Priscilla Feral, president of the Norwalk-based Friends of Animals, called it the sanctioned murder of intelligent birds that is being subsidized by taxpayers and customers of the utility.
"They belong to the planet, not the corporation," Feral said. "This is a draconian measure and I'm going to raise hell."
The $125,000 program, targeting more than 100 stick nests in utility poles, began in West Haven this week and will expand to Milford, Stratford, Bridgeport and beyond, UI officials said.
The gregarious cowled birds, which have colonized much of the Connecticut coast over the last 30 years, are being captured at night with nets by specially trained UI crews and turned over to U.S. Department of Agriculture personnel.
The USDA officials euthanize most of the birds and use others for research, according to Al Carbone, spokesman for UI, who stressed that bird nests in utility poles have contributed to at least two fires, including one last summer.
Corey Slavitt, a public affairs spokeswoman with the USDA's animal and plant health inspection service in Washington, confirmed that UI workers are giving the animals to the USDA.
"The reason it's being done at night is because that's when adult populations congregate at their roosts," Slavitt said. He added that the birds are actually parrots (Myiopsitta monachus) native to the jungles of South America who have naturalized themselves. They are not native to this area.
Indeed, Dennis Schain, communications director for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said that the birds have been declared an invasive species with potential detrimental effects on the environment.
"The DEP is, of course, in the business of protecting wildlife and the state's natural resources," Schain said. "In this case, however, the monk parakeet is an invasive species; it is not protected under any federal or state laws, and nests on utility poles are creating a fire hazard and a threat to reliable electrical
Wait a minute. We can't stop 'em from sneaking over the border, but Connecticut can kill 'em off whenever they please?
These parakeets are highly intelligent--they can make more of a nuisance than other species. A shame--they are beautiful and make nice pets, which is how we got them in the first place, being released into the wild.
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.