Manager of Complex Seeks to Evict Birds

An apartment-complex manager is asking the City Council to reconsider his request to trap pesky pigeons, even though Laguna Beach is a bird sanctuary.

Laguna Sea Cliffs Apartments manager Blair Roberts, who first approached City Hall with his problem eight months ago, says he has tried everything else to rid the complex of flocks of birds, which residents complain are as messy as they are tenacious.

After a lively council discussion in December, during which suggestions ranged from shooing the birds with fake owls, pinwheels and predator recordings to spiking their food with birth-control chemicals, the council asked Roberts to seek help from the Pacific Wildlife Project in Laguna Niguel.

Apartment management has done its best “in pursuing an alternative to trapping and removal of the birds from our property, as was requested by the council,” Roberts said in a letter that council members will consider on Tuesday. “We now request that the permit to trap be issued.”

Roberts, who wants to release the trapped birds elsewhere, has said he is not trying to destroy them but to “reduce the flock to a manageable level.” The council has the authority to allow removal of the birds if they become a public nuisance or a “menace to health or property.”

One Laguna Sea Cliffs resident wrote to the council that the pigeons roost on the deck, fouling tables, chairs and the barbecue.

“I am tired of this,” the resident wrote. “The lice and germs accompanying the excrement are only part of the problem. The filth must be seen to be believed.”

But Linda Evans, founder of the Pacific Wildlife Project, said she is not convinced that residents have exhausted their options. Besides, she said, birds should be expected along the coast in areas such as Cliff Drive, where the 22-unit complex is located.

“The beach-goers enjoy, encourage and feed those birds,” she said. “And for as many people that complain about those and other birds, there are more that enjoy their presence.”