Coots in Need of a Friend : Student Tries to Halt Killing of Birds on Lake Mission Viejo

For some, the coots killed at Lake Mission Viejo mean food on the table. For 16-year-old Geeta Bahl and other animal lovers, the shooting of birds by a homeowners association leaves only a bad taste.

Officials for the Lake Mission Viejo Homeowners Assn. say they must kill the coots because the migratory birds foul the man-made lake’s water quality and cause hundreds of thousands of dollars in landscape damage every year. General Manager William Schwartz said the association donates the dead birds to local residents from Louisiana and Southeast Asia who substitute coot meat for duck in various Asian and Cajun recipes.

But Bahl, a bird lover and a junior at Capistrano Valley High School in Mission Viejo, has mounted a campaign to save her feathered friends, collecting about 80 signatures from Mission Viejo residents who say they want to see the killing of the birds stopped.

Bahl’s efforts have caught the attention of the Mission Viejo City Council and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: A councilwoman has asked the association to consider other solutions, and the service says it will investigate whether the association is abiding by its license to kill the coots.

Killing the birds has become an annual tradition in Mission Viejo, where it is called the “coot shoot.” Since Lake Mission Viejo opened in June, 1978, the chicken-size, black waterfowl have arrived by the hundreds every fall from the cold climes of Canada to share the 124-acre lake with swimmers and anglers.

The birds stay until March or April, but not before depleting the lake’s lush landscaping, befouling decks and walkways of lakefront homes, as fowl do, and gobbling up the aquatic vegetation, Schwartz said.

For the last 14 years, the association has received federal permission to shoot the coots. Maintenance workers, who sharpen their aim for up to three weeks at a skeet range, sit in small boats and fire upon the coots floating among the ducks on the lake. The hunters then fish out the dead waterfowl and give them to those who have requested the meat.

“We’re glad to” give them away, Schwartz said. “If it serves a useful purpose, then why not. . . . “

Coots are not in danger of becoming extinct, and Schwartz said the association’s permit allows the killing of up to 450 coots this year.

The association has also received permission from the city to use shotguns to kill the birds. But the sound of gunfire near the lake has raised questions from some Mission Viejo residents.

A grandmother who was driving her two grandchildren to school recalled “how traumatized the kids appeared” after she told them that the loud explosions were actually gunshots from hunters killing the coots, said Mission Viejo City Councilwoman Sharon Cody, adding that she has received several complaints about “the coot shoot.”

Bahl said she decided to take some action after she learned about the killing of the birds two weeks ago.

While her friends were busy shopping and wrapping Christmas presents, Bahl has been knocking on neighbors’ doors, asking them to sign her petition to stop the “coot shoot.” So far, she has collected 85 signatures.

“You wouldn’t believe how many people don’t know that this is happening,” Bahl said. “People have lived here for 12 years and don’t know that our association is using our fees to slaughter these helpless birds.”

In her petition, Bahl tells her neighbors that the association is to blame for “foolishly luring the coots to the man-made lake by supplying abundant food and prime living conditions.”

“The association’s board members have chosen an easy way to solve the problems which they themselves have created,” Bahl said. “Hiring hunters to massacre the coots is inhumane and ineffective.”

This is not Bahl’s first battle involving birds. When her pet parakeet died after receiving an injection for treatment of mites, her family filed a small claims lawsuit for $90 against the Mission Viejo veterinarian. The “People’s Court” television show asked to stage the trial, but the defendants would not agree to appear on TV. In the end, the veterinarian was ordered to pay the $90 plus court costs.

In the case of the coots, Bahl so far has received the support of Cody, the National Audubon Society, and the Pacific Wildlife Project, a Laguna Niguel volunteer group that cares for injured wildlife.

“This is a classic example that you can’t have everything,” said Pete DeSimone, manager of the Audubon Society’s Starr Ranch Sanctuary in Trabuco Canyon. “You can’t live on a lake and not want the wildlife that goes with it. If the coots see a body of water, you bet they’re going to stop. We cannot fix everything and make it just perfect.”

Cody and Linda Evans, director of the Pacific Wildlife Project, say they fear that other birds, including grebes and protected species that live on the lake, could be killed in the shooting.

In a letter to the association, Cody said Audubon Society spotters counted 500 coots on Lake Mission Viejo in its annual bird count two weeks ago. Schwartz insisted that at least 2,000 coots invaded the lake this year and that hunters are instructed to shoot only coots.

“This discrepancy leads me to believe that the association may be counting birds other than coots,” Cody said. “Is it possible that you are also shooting birds that are not coots?”

Special Agent Marie Palladini of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Torrance said officials will investigate whether the association is abiding by its license. “We think the complaints we have received should at least be investigated to ensure that all the right information was presented in the association’s application,” Palladini said.

Schwartz said the association is willing to listen to options to the “coot shoot.”

“We have to protect our homeowners’ investments and make sure the lake is viable,” Schwartz said. “It’s not that we like to slaughter these birds. It has not been any fun.”