Disease Task Force Eyeing Pet Birds

State and federal agents trying to control the spread of a deadly avian disease have killed 3.4 million birds in Southern California -- some of them household parrots and parakeets -- and have enlisted hundreds of investigators, mail carriers and talkative neighbors to help identify homes with birds.

Officials with the Exotic Newcastle Disease Task Force say they must take extreme measures to halt the disease, which spreads like a virulent flu, before it wipes out the state’s $3-billion poultry industry.

Since the disease was discovered in September in a backyard flock of chickens in Compton, task force members have placed wide swaths of Southern California under quarantine. They walk door-to-door, searching for sick birds. If a bird is suspected of having the disease, it is killed immediately, in some cases in front of crying owners.

Bird lovers complain that they are more frightened of the task force than the disease.

Actor-producer Jeff Maxwell, who owns a 22-year-old parrot, said he watched in shock as a task force agent last weekend jotted down the address and a description of his Alhambra home and then entered its global positioning satellite coordinates into a hand-held computer. He later learned from his mailman that USDA officials have enlisted the Postal Service into reporting the addresses of bird owners.

The task force has been given “carte blanche to kill any feathered thing on your property or your house regardless of whether it tests positive,” Maxwell said. “The thought of somebody driving to my door, which now could happen because I’ve been identified as being a bird owner, and coming in and killing my bird in front of me is outrageous.”

Annette Whiteford, who helps manage the task force on behalf of the state Department of Food and Agriculture, has spent months fielding similar complaints from angry and distraught bird owners.

“Being on this task force has been depressing because I have been trained to save animals,” said Whiteford, a veterinarian. “Now my mission is to save animals by killing animals. This disease is not pretty.”

Exotic Newcastle is harmless to humans but affects virtually all bird species, especially chickens. The uncurable disease causes sneezing, coughing and diarrhea, and can be spread by a speck of saliva carried on a feather blowing in the wind.

The last time the virus hit the state’s poultry industry was in the early 1970s, when 12 million chickens had to be destroyed at a cost of more than $50 million. The disease took almost three years to eradicate.

Following the discovery of Newcastle last year, authorities ordered birds in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties quarantined. The lockdown was recently extended to Santa Barbara, Ventura and Imperial counties. New cases have been discovered in Nevada and Arizona. People who move birds out of the quarantined areas could face a $25,000 fine.

The task force, formed by the state Department of Food and Agriculture and the USDA, has been trying to control the virus by killing seemingly healthy birds living within approximately half a mile of infected fowl. Nearly 2,000 people, many of them out-of-state veterinarians and other USDA workers, have been brought in for 21-day rotations on the task force.

Agents have set up two busy headquarters, one in Garden Grove and the other in Colton. The task force makes wall-sized charts of infected and quarantined areas in Southern California. Giant red circles blend together in parts of San Bernardino, Riverside and Los Angeles counties.

So far, the task force has killed 3.2 million birds at 22 farms and commercial businesses, most of them in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

Nearly 137,000 birds making up 2,343 backyard flocks have also been killed, including 417 such flocks in Los Angeles County, two in Orange County and three in Ventura County. Some wild birds have also been killed.

Cases of the disease have been identified in 28 Los Angeles County communities. Lancaster, Little Rock, South El Monte, El Monte and La Puente account for the highest instances of disease in backyard flocks.

“Newcastle disease is the hoof-and-mouth disease of birds,” said Jack Shere, a veterinarian who is leading the task force on behalf of the USDA. “People don’t seem to grasp how important that is. The bottom line is you have to euthanize the few to protect the many.”

Earlier this year, the task force targeted parts of the Westside after a bird suspected of having the disease was dropped off at an animal shelter. Eventually the area was declared safe, but only after agents fanned out through West Los Angeles and Santa Monica, warning residents that government has the authority to kill pet birds if necessary to halt the outbreak of disease.

In February, task force members accompanied by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies eradicated more than 100 birds at the Little Rock home of Amalia Piceno -- chickens, ducks, some peacocks and a pair of turkeys named Thelma and Louise. One peacock was shot from a tree with a .22-caliber rifle. Piceno said the family was paid $1,254 for the losses.

“They don’t care about your feelings,” Piceno said Friday, breaking down in tears as she recalled the incident. “They even destroyed all the pens we had. I said, ‘Who’s going to pay for that?’ and they told me, ‘Not us.’ ”

Last month, task force members, accompanied by police officers, showed up at Deanna Wood’s home in Mira Loma. Carrying a forced-entry warrant, they pushed through her backyard gate and seized her pet rooster, four hens and two ducks. They placed the birds in a large cardboard barrel. Wood said she stood in horror, listening to the birds shriek as task force members filled the barrel with carbon dioxide.

She said she was later told that agents had found an infected flock of birds “around the corner and up the street” from her house. “I feel like I’ve lost seven members of my family,” Wood said.

Jittery leaders of the Parrot Society of Los Angeles are circulating a bulletin to its members:

“Be prepared not to allow a task force member entry into your home, no matter how polite they seem.... If no law enforcement officer is with them, call 911 for help. Keep a video camera handy, with fresh film and batteries.”

Daina Castellano, a Parrot Society board member, said she has spent hours consoling traumatized bird owners.

“The violation of people who have lost their pets is overwhelming,” said Castellano, a Santa Monica resident who owns eight macaws and an African Grey parrot.

Meanwhile, several groups of bird owners in March sued Gov. Gray Davis and governmental agencies, demanding that due-process protections be instituted to block officials from “arbitrarily” killing pets and show birds.

Lawyer William Dailey of West Hollywood said more than 800 healthy birds belonging to petitioners named in the complaint have been killed so far and hundreds of others are in jeopardy.

“We’re asking that birds not be killed unless they need to be,” Dailey said. “If they were doing this to people’s dogs and cats, there’d be such a scream down here it would be heard clear in Sacramento.”

Maxwell, whose roles have included that of Private Igor on the “MASH” television series, said he was told that his parrot, George, would be granted a reprieve if he implemented “a bio-security plan” that meets standards being set by the task force.

He quickly installed troughs filled with bleach at his front and back doors to disinfect the bottoms of shoes. Visitors must wear freshly laundered clothing and wash their hands 10 to 20 seconds in hot, soapy water upon entering his house.

“I love my bird dearly,” he said. “I’ve had him 22 years. We don’t have kids -- George is our kid.”