Burrowing owls are safer in their homes now, since the City
Council approved an ordinance forbidding disking on land where the
owls may reside and suggests mowing instead. The ordinance is part
of a final environmental impact report the city was encouraged to
complete after a lawsuit in March by the Santa Clara Valley Audubon
Society.
Burrowing owls are safer in their homes now, since the City Council approved an ordinance forbidding disking on land where the owls may reside and suggests mowing instead. The ordinance is part of a final environmental impact report the city was encouraged to complete after a lawsuit in March by the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society.
The 1999 citywide burrowing owl habitat mitigation plan required the city to adopt an ordinance “to maintain the “highest owl population levels possible in the interim period when preserve lands are being acquired and restored.” The lawsuit resulted because the city was seen by the Audubon Society as dragging its feet in adopting the ordinance.
Under the new ordinance, effective Oct. 3, it is now unlawful for anyone to disc, plow or otherwise break into or turnover soil upon any real property within the city for any purpose including weed abatement or management if the land meets certain criteria:
• If the property, by itself or together with adjacent property, is at least two acres in size and at least two acres support grasslands and/or mixed herbaceous vegetation not separately irrigated for agricultural purposes
• If burrowing owls are known to hang out on any property of any size at any time during the preceding three years
Not covered by the disking and plowing ban is property actively used for agricultural production and property less than two acres occupied by a house used solely as a residence. Fire breaks along perimeters of property adjacent to roads, creeks and buildings or through the middle if needed are also exempt from the ban if less than 30-feet in width.
Property identified by a qualified ornithologist as being unlikely to house burrowing owl nesting habitat is also exempt, though those areas must be defined in a resolution adopted by the City Council.
Finally, all property located within the hazardous fire boundary, as adopted by the Santa Clara County Fire Department, may be disked or plowed.
“This was part of our settlement agreement,” said Craig Breon, executive director of the local Audubon Society. “It is a good, strong step in the right direction.” Mowing, he said, while a little more expensive, does the same thing and is actually better because the land is open to fewer invasive weeds.
Other animals, too, will benefit from mowing instead of disking, Breon said. Lizards, snakes, small rodents all will have their habitat undisturbed and, he pointed out, raptors and larger animals depend on those.
Even though the ordinance does not specifically require mowing or forbid the use of herbicides, Breon said there is little danger of herbicide use.
“Mowing and disking are the traditional means of weed control of this sort,” Breon said. “Buying a lot of chemicals might actually be more expensive.”
Besides a disking program, the Audubon Society lawsuit wanted the city to speed up replacing habitat for the threatened owl lost during campus industrial development and other redevelopment projects.
In June the city adopted its burrowing owl mitigation plan that included set aside habitat.
“The plan will establish local preserves – a ‘homeland security’ system for the owls – using the best lands first,” said Anthony Eulo, assistant to the city manager and the city’s environmental caretaker.
An appropriate preserve would include few trees, a fenced perimeter – to keep out dogs. Vegetation will be kept short and there will be no poison used. Ground squirrels are often controlled with poison, he said.
Developers will sustain the project by paying $149 per housing unit and $1,045 per acre without a housing unit when beginning a project.
“The owl plan does not punish a landowner who has owls on their land,” Breon said. “That’s one of its best features. The tough issue will be enforcement. San Jose passed a similar ordinance and then hasn’t bothered to enforce, so not much has changed.”
Once widely distributed throughout California, the western burrowing owl is currently listed as a “species of special concern” by both the state and federal governments – a status that can be a precursor to listing as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act.
While they were once common on the valley floor, approximately 100 breeding pairs remain today in the South Bay, Breon said. Five nesting pairs of the owls were counted in Morgan Hill in a 1997 survey, he said, but none was found last year. The most recent count showed just one, although Breon said more possibly could be in the area.
Burrowing owls are known to have taken up residence near El Toro School. Attempts to move them to a safer and more private spot have failed; the owls return to El Toro.
Burrowing owls favor open, dry and sparsely vegetated land with available burrows from creatures such as ground squirrels and forages on rodents and insects. It is a favorite of bird lovers because it comes out in the day and is not totally frazzled by noise or human activity, often allowing observers to approach within 20 yards.
The city issued a request for proposal (RFP) this summer for a third party to administer the preserve. By Oct. 1, Eulo said one reply had been received, from an ecological consulting firm in San Jose.
“We must make an effort to preserve what we cannot replace,” Councilman Greg Sellers said in June.
