Featherly Love : Irvine Believes 360 Acres of Open Space for Traveling Geese Will Fill the Bill

The 360-acre vista of rolling hills and open flatlands along a stretch of freeway are only a tiny part of 15,000 acres that Irvine officials hope to maintain as open space for generations.

But they are like no other acres in Orange County. They have been home for an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 Canada geese during about three months of every year for more years than anyone can remember.

The presence of the big birds, said an Irvine planning commissioner, is a “natural wonder” that adds to the “rural ambiance” along the San Diego Freeway.

“That’s the only stretch of the freeway in Los Angeles and Orange counties that doesn’t have developments right alongside,” Commissioner Cameron Cosgrove said. “It’s the only offering of scenic beauty and eye relief in the whole of the two counties, and the geese make the scene complete.”

Until a few years ago, that stretch was earmarked for a new Irvine civic center. Now a civic center is under construction elsewhere--at Alton Parkway and Harvard Avenue--and the geese’s habitat is being proposed as open space in a revamped Irvine general plan, said Assistant City Manager Paul Brady.

The big birds, with almost 4-foot wingspans, long black necks and heads with a white splash near the cheeks, white underbody and grayish-brown wings, make up one of several flocks that leave Canada and northern portions of the United States to winter along the Southern California coast, said Earl Lauppe, supervisor of wildlife management for the state Department of Fish and Game.

“This is what I call a unique urban flock,” Lauppe said.

Other flocks seek more or less isolated marsh lands, “but these guys come back every year just a few yards from one of our busiest and noisiest freeways, with homes and other developments not far way,” he said.

The Orange County flock breeds somewhere in western Canada, Lauppe said, and migrates here by way of Utah and parts of Arizona before heading toward the coast. They arrive during November and settle in fields on the south side of the freeway between Sand Canyon Road and University Drive, which becomes Jeffrey Road at the freeway. They start back north in late January or early February.

Their sector here is known as Quail Hill, one of several small hills that enclose--and hide from freeway view--the Sand Canyon Reservoir, a source of water for the geese.

The City of Irvine, working to update its general plan, studied Quail Hill and the roosting and feeding habits of the geese, said Steve Haubert, of the city’s planning department.

“It was part of a study of the city’s 76 square miles (including its sphere of influence), and concentrated on the feeding and roosting locations of the flock of geese,” he said.

It showed that the birds rest at night in and around the reservoir and move to and from the fields along the freeway each morning and evening. In flight, they provide an interesting sight for drivers. But in the fields near grazing cattle, their gray-brown coloring blends with rocks and dry clumps of grass and makes them more difficult to see.

The Irvine general plan, Cosgrove said, now calls for only 11,000 acres of open space. Under the proposed new plan, Irvine will have maintained 15,000 acres of open space, including the Quail Hill geese habitat, when the city reaches its full growth in the year 2020.

Other open-space areas in the 15,000 acres have not been defined.

Larry Thomas, a spokesman for the Irvine Co., which owns the land, said the change of designation of Quail Hill from a development area to open space “in perpetuity” has been the subject of long discussions between the city and the company, and will be the subject of a series of public hearings.

“We would prefer to proceed on the development approach,” he said. “However, (if) Quail Hill is of such high priority to the city, we’re always ready to discuss open space, but we’d like some compensation.”

Thomas would not discuss specific terms of possible compensation but suggested that the company might receive some consideration from the city on other development projects.

Meanwhile, the Department of Fish and Game expressed delight with the city’s proposal to maintain a wintering place for the geese.

“The birds are not an endangered species,” Lauppe said. “In fact, they can be hunted in season, but as migratory birds they are protected by federal and state laws and the number that can be taken is limited. Plus, their wintering areas are getting smaller and smaller.

“The Irvine city concept is just great. People get a real thrill when they get a chance to see those big wild birds.”

Haubert said the general plan public hearings will begin at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday with the Finance Committee in City Hall, where all meetings will be held. The Community Services Commission hearing will follow on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.; the Planning Commission Thursday at 7:30 p.m.; the Transportation Committee at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 25, and the City Council on Jan. 26.

He emphasized that all meetings are open to the public for discussion.