April 5, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
written by Shelley Bluejay Pierce
freelance writer from Bozeman, Montana
ORANGE COUNTY, FLORIDA- A peaceful day golfing in Florida brought humans face to face with two Red Shouldered Hawks defending their nesting area. In Orange County Florida, this past week brought human-wildlife conflict to a head that left the two hawks dead and federal wildlife agents in turmoil over how the issue was handled.
After more than a dozen human attacks, the red shouldered hawks were killed by shotgun blasts Wednesday morning at the Villas of Grand Cypress Golf Resort. The resort had contacted the local office of USDA Wildlife Division and asked officials to aid them in removing the birds. The conflict ended with the hawks being shot and the local USDA Wildlife officials being questioned by an angry public and numerous animal rights agencies as to why this decision was made. Bernice Constantin, State Director for USDA Wildlife Services in Gainesville has been investigating the event and voiced regret at the incident.
"Our agency maintains a primary goal in these cases. Protecting and ensuring human safety is our top priority. The hawks were killed due to their violent attacks upon the locals. I was in contact with the agents in our office and allowed the biologists to make a determination based upon our issued permits. The understanding of all that the permits allowed for us to do became the basis for some misunderstanding. We believed that a separate permit was needed for relocating the hawks or for other measures of control. Our error in interpreting the wording on these permits is now a primary focus for this office and I am doing my best to move forward in educating all agents to better understand permit regulations and allowances. However, I stand behind the primary goal of our agents....human safety first."
Red Shouldered Hawks and other wildlife have been suffering loss of habitat due to the massive expansion in this area of Florida where conflicts with humans have been steadily increasing. During the breeding and nesting season, some birds of prey can become very defensive of their nesting grounds and are sometimes driven to attack humans. However, animal protection groups are outraged at the decisions made to shoot the nesting hawks. Hawk Watch International, Audubon and other national agencies are all demanding accountability on the part of Constanin's office. Many have voiced questions regarding why other measures of control for these hawks in Florida was not attempted prior to shooting them. The result of the actions taken by wildlife agents in Florida will have long reaching consequences to a nation wide concern of how best to deal with such circumstances in the future. Human-wildlife conflicts are escalating due to the human occupation of once open, wild lands that allowed for species progression without human interference.
Bernice Constantin also stated, "My office will be contacting our State USDA Representatives to request in-depth training for all officials responsible for managing these conflicts. Hopefully, our future conferences will offer detailed classes exploring the full scope of these permitting rules. Our agents need to completely understand all their options before they confront similar situations involving these conflicts between humans and wildlife. However, I firmly believe in this case, the human safety issue demanded our immediate attention and that was how the agents from our office proceeded."
Further debate will be required from all sides of this issue. Wildlife habitat is being consumed at an alarming rate world wide. Conflicts between humans and wildlife will continue, requiring cooperation between federal, state and local agencies. The environmental and animal rights organizations demand attention be paid also to the needs of the wildlife involved. This is a point of conflict requiring good communication and cooperation on all parts in order to find solutions.
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Okay, peeps, EVERYONE who cares about how wildlife-human conflicts are handled in this country should write STRONG complaints about this incident.
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However, I firmly believe in this case, the human safety issue demanded our immediate attention and that was how the agents from our office proceeded.
Ok, my cynical side read that as
However, I firmly believe that it is in my best political interests to completely avoid giving the impression that anybody actually made a mistake, which would invite a lawsuit I know we could never win and would cause a number of heads to roll, including my own.
From my blog post on this:
Bernice Constantin, state director of wildlife services in Gainesville for the Agriculture Department, said the shooting of raptors is a rare event.
I'll bet it is. Especially for the USDA, which is not the relevant authority. The US Fish and Wildlife Service in the Department of the Interior is the government agency charged with permitting under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. They are the ones that the USDA gets permits from, and they should have been handed the problem immediately.
They might have had a few synapses more to put on the problem than did the USDA agents ("On *whose* side?") who were obviously way beyond their cognitive capabililties on this one.
You remind me why I am a hardcore misanthrope. This story breaks my heart.
You know, I got to thinking about what good would come of writing to USDA to ask them to police themselves. What we have here is a pretty clear case of exceedingly poor judgement (at best) or a possible violation of the permit.
Write, email, or telephone US Fish and Wildlife Service and suggest that they rescind the USDA permit to deal with native bird species. As a poor second, ask that the USDA's permit be revised to expicitly bar them from taking lethal measures in dealing with native bird species. I think that complaints to the permitting agency are more likely to produce results than complaints to the perpetrating agency.
Here is US F&WS contact information for the relevant region:
REGION 4
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Migratory Bird Permit Office
P.O. Box 49208
Atlanta, GA 30359
Tel. (404) 679-7070
Fax (404) 679-4180
Email permitsR4MB@fws.gov
(Please include your telephone number in the text of your message so we may better serve you).
Okay, here's some more news from the front. There are some holes in the narratives, but I think what I have is straight dope.
There were two chicks in the nest the slain adults were defending, but the Ag boys din't have no ladder (and the golf club didn't either? Give me a break!), so they just watched. Through binoculars. Two days later, someone managed to get up to the nest (golly, where'd that ladder come from?!?) and they were discovered. Dead. Nice, huh?
Let me tell you that in Florida, Gov. Jeb Bush (just as nasty but a lot smarter than his bro), with the collusion of the bought-and-paid-for-by-developers legislature, has eviscerated the civil service system by making state employees who are supervisors subject to firing without cause (another big story here, but. . .). Think that through. Just keep it in mind as this unfolds, so as to understand strange silences.
The ornithologists of the state wildlife agency know about it and are taking the steps they can to get a halter and snaffle bit on the USDA death squad. Will be hard with the lack of back(ing) from the top of the agency. (I can't say more!)
The resort people apparently called Audubon's Center for Birds of Prey in Maitland (greater Orlando area, i.e. nearby), who told them that a red-shouldered hawk nest with chicks had been moved successfully last year. Apparently this possibility was unpalatable because it might have taken a few extra hours (I suspect that the golfer who was injured threatened lawsuit and demanded summary execution).
Audubon of Florida is mounting a major attack, and birders (who tend to be affluent) are getting on the golfer blogs to demand a boycott of the Villas golf club. *nasty snicker*.
It is only now I can begin to deal with this without spiking my blood pressure into the death range. I hope this awakens all the bird loving community to the threats within. Look into the works of the USDA Wildlife Services. It is not a pretty sight. I do think they'd kill whooping cranes if some degenerate claimed them to be a menace.
However, I firmly believe in this case, the human safety issue demanded our immediate attention and that was how the agents from our office proceeded.
Really... and just how many humans have been killed by hawks this year?
Here is a copy of an email I sent to the US Fish and Wildlife service, and which I sent a cc to the USDA. This kind of thing makes my blood boil!
"I was shocked to learn that the USDA improperly made the decision to issue permits to kill two redshouldered hawks in Orange County, at the Villas of Grand Cypress Golf Resort, and that a USDA technician followed through with that task, shooting the mating pair. These were two actively nesting hawks, which have federal protection under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and the USDA was not the proper authority to make such a decision. It is my understanding that the US Fish and Wildlife Service is the proper authority to evaluate a problem involving birds such as these birds.
Certainly, a proper analysis by the relevent authority could have yielded a better decision. The birds could have been moved from the site, or the area could have been cordoned off for the duration of the nesting season, the only time when the birds would pose any possible hazard to passers-by. It was not only offensive to kill these birds, but showed gross mismanagement by the USDA and was in violation of their regulatory authority.
Please address this issue. If the USDA does not understand the boundaries of their authority, then perhaps they should no longer be allowed to issue permits to use lethal methods to address similar situations. At the very least, they should have to receive a consultation with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and it should be your decision how to best proceed. Finally, lethal methods of removing a problem bird or other wildlife should only be used as a last resort when there is no other viable option. That was clearly not the case here."
what this tells us we need someone outside the goverment to police the goverment on protecting the enviroment