OAKLAND, Calif. — It started as a well-intentioned attempt by the United States Postal Service here to rid its trucks of bird droppings: A tree trimmer was hired to prune the lush ficus trees that grow next to the post office’s parking lot, not far from City Hall. But in the course of the job, five baby black-crowned night herons fell from their nests and were injured.
At first there were reports that the birds had been fed into a wood chipper — not true — and from there the story took on a life of its own. Residents and city officials called for avian justice. Bird lovers from France, Romania, Serbia, Sweden, Ukraine and even New Jersey signed an online petition with the headline “Oakland Chainsaw Massacre” that called on the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to press charges against the perpetrators.
They have gotten their wish and more: The tree trimmer, Ernesto Pulido, 26, is staring at a possible federal charge of violating theMigratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.
“I’m not a gangster,” said a contrite Mr. Pulido, who has visited the bird shelter where the victims are recuperating and voluntarily paid $2,500 for their medical care. “I’m just a guy who’s making a living day to day.”
Since the incident in early May, Mr. Pulido has moved his pregnant wife and young daughter to another house, he said, because he was receiving threats. He added that he loved animals and was raised in Mexico with more animals than people.
But in Oakland, a city that has been rapidly gentrifying, concern for the birds runs very high — higher, some people complain, than concern for the city’s large homeless population. Downtown Oakland has long been known for its high crime rate and gritty urban feel, despite the recent arrival of young people and food lovers, whose presence has prompted some people to call the city “the new Brooklyn.”
Wendy Jackson, executive director of the East Oakland Community Project, which provides housing for the homeless, said that when people help baby birds, “it feels pure to them.” Their attitude toward homeless adults is less charitable: “They think those adults should be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” she said. “Often, that is not possible.”
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service investigated Mr. Pulido, who could face a $15,000 fine and six months in jail, said Jill Birchell, the agency’s special agent in charge of law enforcement for California and Nevada. Her office recommended that the United States attorney’s office charge Mr. Pulido with the lesser penalty of a $1,500 misdemeanor for violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act: $1,000 for the violation and $100 for each bird. The treaty prohibits injuring migratory birds.
Some people say the situation has descended into absurdity. One of them is Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California and chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service. He wrote a letter to the director of the agency questioning its choice to target the tree trimmer rather than the post office and arguing that the decision was “driven by public outcry, as initial reports indicated baby birds were fed through a wood chipper.”
The migratory herons and egrets that nest in the trees by the post office certainly have their local fans. Many people who pass by — though perhaps not under — the trees delight in the barks and swoops of the herons. Residents have adapted to the white droppings that fall on cars, sidewalks and parking meters.
“We have to scrape their guano off with shovels,” said Kristine Shaff, a spokeswoman for the Oakland Public Works Department. “They are valuable wildlife, but they don’t have the same personal habits as people.”
One Saturday last month, Mr. Pulido and his crew were cutting branches when Cat Callaway, a landscaper who lives in the neighborhood, spotted a cherry picker, a wood chipper and newborn herons on the ground. Distraught and “animated,” Ms. Callaway said, she yelled for the workers to stop, saying, “Don’t you know there are birds in there?” She recorded the events — “It worked for the protest movements in the Middle East,” she said — and then alerted wildlife organizations and called the police’s nonemergency number.
Responding to the call, the police researched the law on migratory birds and, arriving at the scene, advised the trimmers that they were not allowed to harm the birds.
When Lisa Owens Viani, a wildlife conservationist, arrived, adult herons were circling the trees and “screaming in distress,” she said. She found the babies hiding under a mail truck. With towels and pet carriers — she came prepared — Ms. Viani “slithered under the truck and scooched them out,” she said.
She delivered five birds to WildCare, a wildlife rehabilitation center in nearby Marin County. There, the herons were given “fluids to stabilize them” and had blood work done “to check for stress levels,” said Alison Hermance, a spokeswoman for the center.
Then they were taken to the International Bird Rescue center in Solano County, northeast of Oakland, which cares for aquatic birds. “They all had bruises and scrapes, and one bird had a fractured mandible requiring surgery,” said Andrew Harmon, a spokesman for the rescue center. The birds are expected to make a full recovery, he said.
Cute and camera-ready, the herons promptly became stars: The rescue center’s live webcam of the birds, with their rock-star spiky, feathered heads, was so popular that the website crashed.
To investigate what had happened, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, working with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, interviewed Mr. Pulido, witnesses and postal employees; examined the wood chipper; and watched Ms. Callaway’s video.
“A commercial company should have known birds nest in the spring and that migratory birds are federally protected,” said Ms. Birchell, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service special agent.
Patricia Kernighan, president of the City Council, said that she believed the post office was “ducking its responsibility here,” and that she had asked the city’s lawyer “to look at holding the post office responsible for hacking up city trees.”
“We apologize for what happened,” said Augustine Ruiz, a spokesman for the post office’s Bay-Valley Postal District. “We’ll do better next time.”
Cindy Margulis, executive director of the Golden Gate Audubon Society, said that next year, when the herons return, she would like to station docents near the trees and put hay on the ground to catch droppings and chicks. (Chicks “have a tendency to push siblings out of nests,” Mr. Harmon of International Bird Rescue said.)
Darin Lounds, executive director of the Housing Consortium of the East Bay, which provides housing for homeless people in Oakland and nearby communities, said the support for the birds was “great,” but added, “We need to have a similar response to the plight of our homeless neighbors.”
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