Oxnard May Use Birds of a Tether to Combat Foul Fowl

California coastal cities vexed by beach pollution have offered up an unconventional solution to the problem: falcons.

The birds of prey scare away pesky sea gulls, the main source of avian droppings that can make ocean waters unfit for human frolicking.

Enter Jeffrey Diaz, a falconer who saved a Santa Barbara beach from flocks of discharging sea gulls. His latest project is Kiddie Beach in Oxnard, where the Kiddie Beach Task Force recently commissioned Diaz and his stable of trained falcons to keep its troubled waters from going to the birds.

“Sea gulls trigger the natural, DNA prey-predator instinct in falcons,” Diaz said by telephone last week as he was heading for Europe to buy some new falcons. “They naturally repel the sea gulls.”

The sliver of sand at Channel Islands Harbor has long been a draw to children and their parents because of its placid waters. But the same features that attract families also contribute to its being the most polluted in Ventura County. It does not benefit from the cleansing effect of waves flushing bacteria and other pollutants out to sea.

The beach task force agreed last week to hire Diaz for $69,120 over seven months and to possibly house one of his employees near the beach to make it easier to launch falcons up to 12 hours a day over the harbor. The program must still be approved by Ventura County’s purchasing department, but officials said they expect it to be up and running later this month.

Diaz’s Northern California-based company, Ronin Air Falconry Service, uses specially trained birds and falconers to scare away sea gulls and other types of birds from beaches, airport runways and other sites.

But critics in Ventura County are crying foul, saying the program costs too much, focuses on the wrong source of pollution and could endanger wildlife, particularly rare birds that frequent the area.

“I think it’s an absolutely ridiculous idea,” said Lee Quaintance, a member of the Beacon Foundation, a local environmental group. “The whole idea of scaring birds away as a means of dealing with chronic pollution just does not make sense.”

Quaintance pointed to recent studies conducted by the county showing that human waste makes up 18% of the bacteria at the beach, compared with 65% from birds. He said the human source was much higher than previously thought.

“The reason why the idea is simple-minded is that the transmittal of human diseases is principally by human pathogens,” Quaintance said. “It’s not a nice thing to have a beach with a lot of bird feces, but human pathogens have the potential to cause much more serious health problems in humans.”

Task force member Damon Wing agreed.

“It’s outrageous to spend that kind of money on a project like this,” said Wing, program director for the environmental group Ventura Coast Keeper. “You can spend half that amount to pay somebody to chase birds away. The main focus should be on human and sewage elements of bacteria and contamination.”

But Christy Madden, the county’s community development manager and chairman of the Kiddie Beach Task Force, said the strategy worked well for Santa Barbara County, where Arroyo Quemada Beach was inundated with sea gull droppings from thousands of birds scavenging in a nearby landfill.

“They saw immediate results, it was instantaneous,” Madden said.

Santa Barbara County officials confirmed the results. A year after the county hired Diaz in 2002 to chase away the gulls, the percentage of ocean water samples that violated state health standards dropped by more than 70%, said Kathy Kefauver, senior environmental engineer for the county’s solid waste department.

“It’s been a wonderful program for us,” said Kefauver, who noted that Santa Barbara County now contracts with a Thousand Oaks falconer. “It has reduced bacteria levels at Arroyo Quemada. It was named the dirtiest beach in the state by Heal the Bay. Now we have very few sea gulls at the landfill.”

Dr. Robert Levin, Ventura County’s health officer and a task force member, said he believes the falcon program is worth a try.

“I think it has the potential to have a significant impact,” Levin said. “It’s the birds that are the problem.”

Opponents say the raptors have the potential to scare away or physically harm other types of birds, despite Diaz’s promises that his falcons are trained to chase only birds of a certain size, such as sea gulls or pigeons.

Dr. William Ferrier, director of the California Raptor Center at UC Davis, said falcons can effectively control pests when they are used as part of a complete bird control program, which includes eliminating food sources and convenient nesting areas.

“Every time you release a raptor, you run the risk of them going out with bad intentions,” Ferrier said. “But the likelihood of one of them catching an endangered species is low. They’re carnivores, and when they’re hungry they go out to eat. But the trained ones are kept at a higher weight and they don’t want to eat. They’re just going after an artificial lure. They’re trained differently than a traditional falcon.”