A turning point in the saga of seabird deaths

Ending one of the longest investigations ever conducted by the California Department of Fish and Game, three men were charged Thursday with animal cruelty in connection with the deaths last summer of hundreds of newly hatched seabirds in the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex.

Long Beach city prosecutor Tom Reeves said seven misdemeanor counts each were filed in Long Beach Superior Court against San Diego-based Point Loma Maritime Services Inc.; Ralph Botticelli, 39, of San Diego; Alan Schlange, 38, of Costa Mesa; and Scott Camren Caslin, 32, of San Diego.

The charges concern their alleged roles in the case that began last June 29, when a Long Beach lifeguard discovered the carcasses of fledgling terns washing ashore. Among them were 27 survivors -- battered and bruised and in shock -- that were transported to the International Bird Rescue Research Center in San Pedro. Two days later, more tern bodies washed up in the same area.

The defendants are all facing three counts of unlawfully removing or killing migratory non-game birds, one count of unlawful destruction of nests, one count of harassment of non-game birds and two counts of animal cruelty.

“The evidence suggests they are responsible for the deaths of more than 400 terns,” Reeves said during a news conference at Long Beach City Hall. “We essentially lost a generation of that species for that year.

“But when we use the words ‘animal cruelty’ in this case,” he added, “we’re not necessarily talking about an action conducted in an evil manner.”

In a telephone interview, Botticelli said, “No one did anything on purpose or maliciously.

“All they’re doing is spinning out a lot of negative energy on a waste of time and money,” he added. “I’m really bummed out about what happened to those birds. Nobody wanted them to die. Terns are the coolest birds in the world.”

State wildlife investigators believe that Botticelli, his tugboat captain and a deckhand were attempting to move two privately owned barges from the port complex to Santa Barbara for a fireworks display when more than 400 fledgling Caspian and elegant terns -- delicate, skittish and slim birds related to gulls -- stampeded off the sides.

“The lesson here,” said Garry George of the Audubon Society’s Los Angeles chapter, “is that migratory birds are protected, along with their nests. No one can perpetrate attacks on wildlife simply because they are in your way.”

Prosecutors said the defendants were charged with animal cruelty -- each count carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine -- because of the peculiarities of the case.

For one thing, prosecutors said, the side-by-side barges were chartered in “as is” condition, which in this case meant covered with nests and teeming with terns, many of them within three to five days of flying. Beyond that, investigators said Botticelli had spoken over the telephone with someone about the birds that were running over the sides.

The men decided to move the barges anyway, prosecutors said.

“These chicks were incapable of flying. They couldn’t get back on board. So they drowned,” Reeves said.

Many environmentalists complained that state and federal wildlife authorities should have realized that the barges had become a tern nesting site, worthy of protection.

They had also grown frustrated with the length of the investigation, which culminated in charges only two months before the statute of limitations ran out.

State wildlife authorities, however, said the investigation was extraordinarily detailed, was fraught with jurisdictional issues and covered a coastal expanse from San Diego to Long Beach.

“It was one of the most lengthy, tough and complicated investigations ever conducted by the state,” said Steve Martarano, a spokesman for the Department of Fish and Game.

There are an estimated 11,000 elegant terns in California, state wildlife authorities said. Their colonies include several thousand nests, usually scraped depressions on open ground with little or no vegetation.

The colony that settled on the barges established itself in 2006 after being scared away by predators from usual nesting grounds at Huntington Beach’s Bolsa Chica wetlands.

The big question now is this: Deprived of the predator-free barges that had been moored a few hundred yards offshore, where will the characteristically nest-faithful terns settle this summer?

The Los Angeles Audubon Society’s Urban and Wildlife Task Force and the International Bird Rescue Research Center have asked birders in the harbor area to report sightings of roosting and nesting Caspian and elegant terns to task force@laaudubon.org.

Port of Los Angeles ornithologist Kathy Keane was hoping the terns would congregate again on land at Bolsa Chica. Some other environmentalists are calling for actions in response to the tern mortalities that would include stationing barges in traffic-free portions of the port complex.

In the meantime, Reeves said, a dozen of the surviving terns “have been released in the Salton Sea area. Hopefully, they’re living happy lives there.”

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louis.sahagun@latimes.com