Nests to Be Spared During Tree Removal

City officials are assuring worried residents that plans to remove 82 rotted and unstable eucalyptus trees should not be devastating to birds who might be nesting.

Public Works Director Ron Coons said city workers will check each tree for bird nests before the trees fall to city chain saws Monday morning, but he expects workers will find few active nests.

Turkey vultures roost in the trees but build their nests in nearby rocks or old barns, he said.

Coons said other bird species aren’t building nests yet, which means birds will settle into the remaining eucalyptuses in the city to raise their young long after municipal crews have done their work and left.

But if workers find birds nesting in a doomed eucalyptus, Coons said, crews would delay cutting it down until nesting season is over.

“I checked with our environmental planners and ran our approach on accommodating the wildlife by them to see if we could be doing anything else and they said, ‘No, that’s the most practical thing to do,’ ” Coons said.

City Councilwoman Barbra Williamson said she has received several calls from residents wondering whether targeting the eucalyptus trees, planted nearly a century ago to protect citrus and walnut groves from the wind, would mean birds and other animals would be displaced.

They want to know what will be done to minimize the impact on Simi Valley’s wildlife.

Dawn Kowalski, who lives near Smith Road, where 41 of the trees will be cut down, said she has seen what happens after the city removes old trees.

“Birds just circled for days looking for their homes,” she said.

On Monday, the City Council agreed to remove 41 eucalyptuses along Sinaloa Drive and another 41 along Smith Road after a consultant’s report concluded they were so old, rotted and unstable that they had become a public safety hazard.