Discover Edgewater > Monk Parakeets > History: 2/6/05

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The Record (Bergen County, NJ)

Sunday, February 6, 2005
PSE&G hatches plan to remove nests; Monk parakeets' homes in Edgewater are seen as potential fire hazard
ADRIENNE LU, STAFF WRITER, North Jersey Media Group

EDGEWATER - Once again, the borough's favorite feathered friends are facing eviction from their lofty nests, and concerned neighbors are crying foul.

Monk parakeets, lime green birds with gray "hoods" on their heads, have been a colorful feature of Edgewater life since the 1970s.

In addition to their tropical-looking plumage, the birds are known for their loud squawking and twiggy nests, which hold multiple families and can grow to more than 4 feet in length.

"They're unique. They're beautiful to watch," said Councilwoman Neda Rose, who said people seeing the birds for the first time often stop their cars to stare, mouths agape.

Most birds use their nests mainly to hatch eggs, but monk parakeets - also known as Quaker parrots - live in their nests year-round.

They also have an unfortunate habit of building their nests on utility poles, often on top of heat-generating transformers, which look like garbage cans perched high on the poles.

Now, Public Service Electric and Gas Co. is planning to remove about a half-dozen nests in the Edgewater area. The company says they pose a fire hazard and it intends to "de-nest" the poles in the next month or so, as it does occasionally to prevent fires, according to Jennifer Connell, a PSE&G spokeswoman.

"It's a safety issue," Connell said. "The nests are built in and around live wires. It's certainly a fire hazard. It's a safety and reliability issue,"

Monk parakeet lovers - and there are many in Edgewater - are outraged.

"By taking down the nests, they're sentencing the parakeets to death," said Alison Evans-Fragale, a nurse and amateur birdwatcher who is trying to start a movement to save the birds. "I am not looking to get in the way of progress or safety, but to find an amicable solution for the birds and the utility company."

After posting a message about saving the monks on a popular Internet message board about Edgewater, Evans-Fragale received more than 100 e-mails, she said.

One man responded that he considered monk parakeets his first friends when he moved into town. One woman said that they reminded her of summer, and that she would do anything she could to help them.

"We just love them," said Tina Koperwas, who scatters birdseed for the parakeets every morning near her high-rise building. Koperwas estimates she goes through a 10-pound bag of birdseed every two days, and says the monks wait in the trees for her to show up every day.

Evans-Fragale acknowledged the law is not on the side of the birds, however.

PSE&G is permitted by the state to remove monk parakeet nests from utility poles.

The company's concern is not without cause. In 1998, a nest atop a utility pole on Hilliard Avenue caught fire and knocked out power to 150 customers for more than an hour. Authorities said a spark from a lower line set the nest on fire. Six baby parakeets that were trapped in the nest died. Connell noted that a power outage during the winter would be considerably more disruptive, causing some people to lose their heat.

Monk parakeets were imported into the United States as pets from South America. They have settled throughout the country, from California to New York and from Illinois to Texas.

In Florida, where monk parakeets are plentiful, their nests frequently cause fires and power outages, according to an article in last month's Audubon magazine. To combat the problem, Florida Power & Light Co. not only removes monks' nests but traps the birds at night and euthanizes them, according to the article.

Both the federal government and New Jersey were once much more aggressive in dealing with monk parakeets, though for a different reason: farmers feared the parakeets could cause extensive crop damage, as they are said to have done in their native countries of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia.

In the 1970s, the state's Departments of Agriculture and Environmental Protection attempted to manage the monk parakeet population here by actively eradicating birds and nests. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had a similar program.

Today, although some biologists question whether the birds pose a real agricultural threat here, New Jersey still considers the birds an undesirable exotic species. Monk parakeets are not permitted as pets, for fear they could escape and breed.

Larry Herrighty, chief of the Bureau of Wildlife Management, a department in the state's Division of Fish and Wildlife, said that although the state no longer actively pursues parakeets, it does allow utility companies to destroy nests that pose a hazard. Any eggs that are found inside the nests are destroyed and chicks are delivered to appropriate caretakers, such as zoos, Herrighty said.

In New Jersey, monk parakeets seem to be fairly limited to Edgewater these days. A couple of decades ago, they could be found as far as Mercer and Sussex counties, according to Brian Moscatello, a member of the New Jersey Bird Records Committee, a non-profit organization that keeps records of rare and unusual species. More recently, he has heard reports of nests or individual birds in Clifton and Lyndhurst, but Edgewater appears to be the only remaining breeding population.

Evans-Fragale hopes to find a win-win solution for the Edgewater parakeets. As one of the dozens who protested on behalf of Pale Male and Lola, the red-tailed hawks who were famously evicted from and later welcomed back to a luxury co-op in Manhattan, she was inspired to take action to protect birds closer to home.

At the very least, she hopes to persuade PSE&G to remove the nests during warmer weather, when the birds would have a better chance of rebuilding their homes elsewhere and not freezing to death. She also wants to ask PSE&G to avoid removing nests when eggs or chicks are still inside.

Moscatello said monks may have survived in Edgewater in part because of their many Homo sapiens friends here.

"More or less, they've been there and been permitted to survive there because clearly there is no agriculture to interfere with, and because the local people have sort of adopted them," Moscatello said. "I think it's basically a good thing."