In San Francisco: The Parrots' Hilton

By: John Blackstone
Topics: Field Notes

(CBS)

John Blackstone is a CBS News correspondent based in San Francisco.

Just a few blocks from our office in San Francisco there is a small park that at 5:30 every afternoon starts to sound like a jungle. Amid the high rise office buildings, it's an incongruous sight as a couple of hundred red and green parakeets come in to land on the trees.

They are the birds that became famous in a book and documentary film as "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill." The park isn't on Telegraph Hill but a couple of years ago the birds started spending the night here when trees in another park were cut down.

Last year some of the residents of apartment buildings nearby started feeding the parrots. The birds love sunflower seeds. Soon the park was busy with people holding out hands full of sunflower seeds and birds happily feasting, landing on hands and heads and shoulders. There were lots of smiles.

But the scene started to worry Mark Bittner, the man who made the birds famous in the first place. He is the author of "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill". He feared that if the birds came to depend on people they might have trouble making it on their own. He worried that people could kidnap the birds and take them as pets. So he pressed City Hall to pass a law making it illegal to feed the birds.

Actually the city police code already banned the feeding of birds in public parks but just to make it clear, the parrots have now been named specifically in the law. The police say they won't be making arrests, but they could start handing out warnings to people caught feeding the parrots.

As one parrot feeder noted, "everything that is fun is either fattening or illegal".

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by ericmichael1 July 19, 2007 12:02 PM EDT: John,

This morning I take my first cup of coffee to the back porch. The sky is clear. The temperature is 72 degrees. A light, cool wind invigorates me and lifts my spirit. It gently touches the tips of the the grass that grows tall in the back field. Except for the birdsong, all is quiet.

This is my vacation. But the weight of stress has been greater this year than last. There is a reason they give us early retirement in my field. I have loved my job, but after the first twenty years went by I realized that it sucks a little part of the soul from you, bit by bit.

This morning I just sit in my chair sipping the hot coffee and watch the small birds glean beneath the feeder. I delight in the chickadees and especially in the baby male cardinals. It is funny how such small, unnoticed things can bring one back to humanity again.

We feed wild birds all of the time in the privacy of our back yards. They seem to survive whether we do or not. They do not toil, nor do they spin. But they survive.

If I can derive such joy from little birds on this day, I cannot fault those who live in the middle of a stress-filled city for doing so.

Eric; Reply to this comment


by ericmichael1 July 19, 2007 3:15 AM EDT: If they were truly indigenous, I would say make it illegal.

But since they are not, what does it really matter?

I suppose that if it were really an issue, you could trap them all and put them in an area they are indigenous to so that they can truly thrive.

Eric; Reply to this comment


by texaslpc July 18, 2007 12:33 PM EDT: I%u2019m distressed to learn that the city plans to ban feeding the wild parrots.

These birds have been imprinted to come to a specific location at a specific time to feed. They%u2019ve also identified humans as companions and food givers.

To stop feeding these birds after such imprinting would equate to cruelty!

It%u2019s a good possibility that they%u2019ll starve or acquire unwanted behaviors such as raiding fruits and orchids.

Please don%u2019t ban feeding the wild parrot flock.; Reply to this comment


by dangitdoug-2009 July 17, 2007 5:24 PM EDT: Wild birds develop habits by experience. If their parents had taken them to an orchard where their was plenty of fruit there for the taking, they would continue to go there for food.

These birds have found food in this park, so they continue to return there for feeding. They are still wild birds. This is a natural behavior. Whether we feed them or not, they will come to this park. When there is no longer any food, they will look elsewhere. That is what wild animals do.

Do we not provide seagulls with tons of food at our landfills? Of course we do. How do you stop it? You don't. Human behavior dictates the need for landfills.

Human behavior also dictates the need to feed animals, be it parrots in the park or squirrels in the park or as my daughter and I do feed birds in front of our house. Humans have come to dominate the world. Therefore it is our responsibility to take care of the animals in our midst.

In this day and age, I would hope San Francisco's City council would have something more important to spend tax dollars debating about.; Reply to this comment


by bennyblack1 July 16, 2007 11:13 PM EDT: I really don't understand the man's concern. First of all, the generations of these wild birds that have been coming to the park are partially domesticated, so they've become everyone's pets. What happens when an animal adopts humans? They keep coming back. This particular flock of wild birds doesn't scurry for food anymore. It goes where it knows the food is. These birds are no longer wild. To illegalize feeding them means that the species will either die, or worse, filter into the neighborhoods and attack innocent people for food. But, seeing the behavior of wild animals lately, they're not going to die. So, don't sanction the people against feeding them. You deny the people of their company, and you starve the birds. The man who wrote the book doesn't know the nature of animals, and should be ignored.; Reply to this comment