The Loma Prietan
May/June 2001
State Queries on Owls Go Unanswered, But Board Doesn’t Know
by Dale F. Mead
Told last November by the California Department of Fish and Game that it must spell out its plans for protecting burrowing owls at Mission College, the West Valley-Mission Community College District Board has yet to do so, says the Fish and Game environmental specialist charged with enforcement.
Yet most of the trustees were not aware of the letter requesting written plans and were confident the district is in compliance with a mitigation agreement made with the Department to protect three habitats on the college campus in Santa Clara.
Established on burrowing owl habitat north of Highway 101 in Santa Clara, the college has been reducing that habitat for the past year for major construction, blocking squirrel holes to chase the owls out and then plowing and fencing the land. The campus housed 13 owls last year, down from 60 when it broke ground in 1988.
(Actually, some displaced owls returned to the plowed acreage this year anyway. They cannot be disturbed until their mating season officially ends September 1. Their burrows are marked with blue flags.)
Three areas, however, were specifically designated to be maintained as owl habitat. One, adjoining land leased to Sobrato Development
to construct high-rise commercial buildings, was destroyed when Devcon construction company dumped dirt on the burrows. Another, the mid-campus traffic circle, was landscaped with sod, flowers, and irrigation inhospitable to owls, and none live there. It remains in that condition.
In November, Fish and Game Regional Manager Robert Floerke warned the district that it was “in direct violation” of the agreement on the dumping and asked for an explanation of how the traffic circle was being made habitable for the wildlife. His letter further requested that the district “formally adopt measures such as those suggested to protect and conserve owls on campus.”
“To my knowledge, that information never has been provided,” said Scott Wilson, the Fish and Game Department representative overseeing the agreement. “Other than rectifying the impact (of the dumping), we still are unaware of the direction the college is taking to manage for the benefit of owls on campus.”
Trustees queried last month acknowledged they were not aware of Floerke’s letter but insisted that, as far as they knew, the district was in compliance. One exception was Don Wolfe, who dismissed the entire issue disdainfully, saying the laws should be changed. “Fish and Game regulations should be reviewed until many of them resemble repeal (sic),” declared the anti-owl trustee.
Trustee Chris Constantin said district staff members had apprised the board of the issue and had rectified it “to the satisfaction of Fish and Game” even though they did not forward the letter itself to the board.
“There was much discussion about the issue,” Constantin said. “The assumption is that the owls were moved somewhere else. We have mitigated this to the satisfaction of Fish and Game.”
Not so, Wilson says. The letter alluded to an incident in which habitat had been plowed for construction without procedures to ensure safe removal of owls on land leased by the district to Sobrato Development for high-rise office buildings next to the campus. That violation was mitigated. The letter also asked for an explanation of how the traffic circle in the middle of the campus, designated owl habitat, could serve as habitat when it was fully landscaped. It remains fully landscaped, uninhabitable and unexplained.
The letter also urged the district to mow designated areas twice a year “to reduce the height of vegetation and provide a high quality habitat for burrowing owls.” In March, environmental studies student Phil Higgins, president of the Environmental Awareness Association on campus, took pictures of weeds four feet high in a designated area. The birds need shorter vegetation so they can see, he explained, noting that the owls that had lived there had abandoned the area.
However, Wilson said neither Higgins nor anyone else at the college had reported the alleged neglect to him, even though he had communicated with on-campus owl advocates in the past. Without knowledge of such transgressions, he could not declare the district out of compliance, he said.
Stung by the district’s apparent lack of commitment to caring for the wildlife on campus, Higgins and environmental studies instructor Jean Replicon organized a meeting in March to inform owl advocates of the conditions facing the creatures. The event featured San Jose State University associate professor Dr. Lynne Trulio, who used slides to describe the plight of the creatures throughout the state.
Replicon expressed the frustration of the pro-owl contingent at the district’s apparent disinterest in the birds and openly pled for advice and help.
“We don’t know what to do,” she told the roughly 60 sympathizers at the session.
Board members felt the roughly $1 million spent by the district for habitat acreage in Byron to offset land losses on campus demonstrated their commitment to caring for the owls. As for the birds themselves, the trustees voiced attitudes ranging from unbridled hostility to sympathy and frustration at the “difficulty” of building with them on campus.
“We are trying not just to comply [with the mitigation agreement] but be friends of owls,” said Trus-tee Nancy Rucker, while acknowledging that they “have been a difficulty in terms of getting the place built the way it should be—although we don’t want them disturbed.”
“If you have a college to build, we do what we need to do to preserve the owls. But we also have to help the students who come to us,” said Trustee Joy Atkins.
To Constantin, the issue is primarily a matter of procedure. For those concerned about the district’s treatment of the owls, “the appropriate course of action is to file a grievance and go to the grievance committee,” he said. “It technically should never reach us; it should be rectified [by the staff] before it reaches us.” However, Higgins complains that staff members simply refer his organization to other staff
members while abuses and neglect continue.
Wolfe, whose hostility to the owls is practically a trademark, complained, “We have spent a million dollars on this issue. That’s the people’s money. If we are not in compliance, perhaps the compliance does not make sense and the rules and regulations should be changed so common sense will prevail.
“We shouldn’t have to spend a million dollars to take care of those little creatures,” he continued. “We are supporting those hundreds of people in the bureaucracy who don’t do anything.”
Asked what he would do about the owls, he replied, “When they hear the bulldozers rumbling down, they’ll know to get out of the way.”
None of the trustees reached described the creatures as an asset to the campus, as Higgins and other EAA members see them. Frank Jewett and Bob Owens could not be reached for this article.