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June 29, 2006
State can't halt birds' execution
Wed, 30 Nov 2005
Animal rights group outraged at UI, seeking injunction to halt process
By KEN DIXON
dixon.connpost@snet.net
HARTFORD - Lawmakers admitted Tuesday that they are helpless to stop The United Illuminating Co. from having monk parakeets - nesting on more than 100 utility poles in southwestern Connecticut - eradicated.
Utility officials said they would try to find a “more humane'' way of evicting the birds. However, that would occur only after this round of nests are removed and hundreds of monk parakeets are killed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture by the end of the year or early 2006.
State Rep. Richard Roy, D-Milford, who has taken a lot of heat from bird lovers opposed to the eradica-tion program, said he hopes that by next spring, the utility will adopt a nonlethal alternative to get rid of the green squawking birds, which, despite their name, are actually parrots, because of their long tails.
“Obviously, we cannot, for the moment, stop what's happening,'' Roy, co-chairman of the Environment Committee, said Tuesday at a news conference.
His statements followed a 90-minute closed-door meeting attended by at least 21 people, including Speaker of the House James A. Amann, D-Milford, other lawmakers, environmental experts and utility officials.
“It's a concern for a lot of people,'' Amann said afterward. “But it's a lot more complicated than remov-ing a nest.''
Roy said he will ask the state's congressional delegation for assistance in changing the federal law, while he hopes for further dialogue with UI and possibly legislation next year to foster a nonlethal re-moval alternative.
“Certainly the people of this state have been letting us know that they are unhappy,'' Roy said. “We're going to continue to work with UI to see if we can come up with some programs that work.''
Roy said that solutions might include extending the height of utility poles to attract nests above trans-formers.
Roy said that another remedy would be for UI to monitor its poles more closely and remove smaller nests before they become large ones. In some cases, they grow to several hundred pounds and house up to 40 parrots.
Utility officials said they will continue to capture birds and turn them over to the agriculture depart-ment, which has killed at least 139 in carbon dioxide chambers since the program began two weeks ago.
“UI was very happy to be invited to this meeting and this continues to be a significant public health and safety issue for us,'' Albert Carbone, the utility's spokesman, said of the $125,000 eradication pro-gram.
He said that UI would work with state and federal officials to find “a solution that's more humane.''
Earlier, Carbone said that 80 of the 103 targeted nests in West Haven, Milford, Stratford and Bridge-port have been visited by UI crews.
Carbone said the bird nests have caused up to a dozen power outages per year, as well as four fires since 2002 in West Haven, Milford, Stratford and Bridgeport.
Carbone, Roy and David Leff, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protec-tion, said a 1999 federal law essentially forces the USDA to kill the monk parakeets because they have been classified as an invasive species.
According to recent Christmas bird counts in Connecticut run by the National Audubon Society, there are at least 1,200 monk parakeets along coastal Connecticut.
Priscilla Feral, president of the Darien-based Friends of Animals Inc., complained that Roy prevented her from participating in the session, even though her group's members helped force the meeting by sending hundreds of complaints to lawmakers and DEP and UI officials.
“Rep. Roy said the meeting was to discuss the public outcry, so to be excluded is rude and disrespect-ful to the people who said he was responding to,'' Feral said outside the Legislative Office Building offices of majority House Democrats.
Feral said Friends of Animals will continue to seek grounds for an injunction to stop the killing of the birds.
In Washington on Tuesday, Corey Slavitt, spokeswoman for the USDA, said that the remains of the dead birds are being transferred to the National Wildlife Research Center in Gainesville, Fla.
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