U.S.

Fences Ruffle Agency's Feathers

April 13, 1998 / 12:44 PM EDT / AP

For California prison officials, electric fences have meant $40 million in savings a year in money that would otherwise be used to pay guards. But for more than 3,000 birds, the fences have meant instant death.

Among the victims were 145 burrowing owls, 111 loggerhead shrikes, and 10 red-tailed hawksÂ—all on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's "sensitive" list because of declining populations.

The agency and prison officials had been working on a solution for nearly five years, ever since California began enclosing 25 of its 33 state prisons with electric fences.

They tried spikes to keep the birds off the fences. They tried cutting all vegetation that could attract the birds. They made sure no food was left outside to draw the birds. Nothing worked.

Now a solution appears to be in sight: After lengthy negotiations, state authorities have put up nets at 13 of the 25 prisons with the fencing.

"Cooperation is our preferred way to eliminate threats to wildlife that are the byproducts of human activity and technology," Fish and Wildlife Service Director Jamie Rappaport Clark said in a statement.

The birds should be protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, said a spokeswoman for the federal agency.

The 4,000-volt fencesÂ—sufficient to kill both man and birdÂ—save the department $40 million annually in staff salaries. The netting cost about $3.4 million and cut the number of electrocuted birds by 90 percent, said Christine May, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections.