Wild parrots in parts of the San Gabriel Valley have recently become targets for a still-unidentified shooter or shooters with a BB gun.
Cleo Watts, a wildlife rehabilitator and founder of the non-profit Cleo’s Critter Care in Pasadena, said that in the past two weeks, she and other rescuers in her network have been receiving calls for birds being shot down.
Watts typically has around five or six cases of parrots shot each year. But in the last two weeks, she’s had three with similar injuries, with X-rays showing pellets or BBs.
On Monday, a dead parrot and an injured parrot were taken to the Pasadena Humane Society, said Kevin McManus, PR & communications manager for the humane society. The organization’s animal control department is investigating.
Someone found the dead parrot Monday in South Pasadena, he said. An X-ray didn’t show a pellet but there seemed to be an entry and exit wound, McManus said.
The second parrot has a broken wing and was found Monday in Pasadena, McManus said, adding it didn’t appear to be shot and authorities don’t know yet how the wing got injured.
The Pasadena Humane Society covers Pasadena, South Pasadena, San Marino, Sierra Madre, Arcadia, Monrovia, Bradbury, La Canada Flintridge, Glendale and the unincorporated communities of Altadena and La Crescenta.
People shooting wildlife like parrots aren’t a rare occurrence.
SoCal Parrot, a non-profit wildlife rescue based in San Diego, gets 10 to 12 parrots per year on average, said Ashly Cass, operations manager. Those birds are from all over Southern California, she added.
X-rays or the birds having track wounds confirm the shooting, she said.
“There are the ones who make it to us,” Cass said.
They found out about what is happening in the San Gabriel Valley from Watts, she said.
SoCal Parrot partners with agencies such as the Pasadena Humane Society to get injured parrots to veterinarians then the birds are taken to SoCal Parrot. Volunteers transport the birds.
Teresa Micco is an avian veterinarian who works in Rancho Palos Verdes. She is also a wildlife rehabilitator for songbirds and hummingbirds and volunteers her time to help take care of parrots, she said.
She recently saw two injured parrots, both of which were found in the San Gabriel Valley. One had severe injuries that included a penetrating wound to the breast and a pellet lodged in a leg, according to Micco. The bird didn’t survive, she said.
The second bird had an injured wing and was discovered among five dead parrots in Temple City, Micco said. The five parrots had been shot, she added.
She suspects the injured bird was shot too.
“That bird came to me yesterday (Monday). He’s stable,” Micco said.
Animal cruelty and shooting a gun (even a pellet gun) in public are crimes. Firing a pellet gun in a neighborhood is also a public safety issue, authorities point out.
The motive behind the parrot shootings remain unknown.
“I don’t know how can someone be so vindictive,” said McManus of the Pasadena Humane Society.
The shootings don’t seem to be San Gabriel Valley-wide.
The Inland Valley Humane Society and the Los Angeles County Animal Care & Control, which covers animal control in several San Gabriel Valley communities as well as police departments and local Sheriff’s stations in the San Gabriel Valley reached on Tuesday said they have not received reports of parrots being shot.
Wild parrots have long lived in the San Gabriel Valley. There are different tales that explain why they ended up here. One claims firefighters battling a blaze at a pet store in Temple City released the parrots while another pointed to bird smugglers as the ones who released the parrots in order to evade the law.
“A lot of the people here, they either love them or they hate them,” Watts said.
She believes it’s multiple people shooting the birds, but also said someone claimed they saw a man in a white truck driving around shooting them.
Authorities asked anyone who saw someone shooting at parrots or other wildlife to call their local police or sheriff’s station.
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