Two palm trees off of Yerba Buena Street and Tide Avenue in Morro Bay were recently trimmed leading to some wildlife losing their homes.
“It affected us a lot to be seeing the opportunity that it could have been stopped real easily,” said Larry Rodgers, Morro Bay resident.
On February 26, Theresa Pena and Larry Rodgers were surprised to find the two palm trees outside their home had been trimmed.
“We got home from work and there was some debris in the yard and we saw some eggshells and found two owl fetuses that were almost fully formed and ready to hatch,” Rodgers said.
After making some calls, they were told by PG&E that the utility company had hired a trimming company to do the work.
Rodgers said there was a nesting great horned owl in one of the trees and nesting kestrels in the other, adding that neighbors told him the birds were swarming around the tree right before and during the work.
“Our neighbor up the street was observing as the tree company was going up in their lift and was taking a picture of that happening and saw the owl fly out right in front of the tree crew,” Rodgers said.
A Morro Bay City ordinance limits tree trimming during bird nesting season, which runs from February 1 through June 30. However, the city tells me, in this case, the trimming was allowed since it was considered emergency work.
“This tree did have a frond that hit the wires and as a result, 399 homes lost power in the city and so to prevent that from happening again, PG&E went to the tree to trim loose palm fronds,” said Greg Kwolek, Morro Bay Public Works director.
PG&E has an encroachment permit with the city requiring the utility company and its subcontractor to reach out to the city prior to work so pre and post inspections can be done.
“That did not happen in this case and PG&E has acknowledged that it was an error. PG&E did violate its encroachment permit with the city and so we’re currently exploring whether or not to apply any fines to PG&E,” Kwolek said.
IN A STATEMENT PG&E TOLD KSBY:
“We deeply regret that the necessary safety-related work on these two trees resulted in the accidental loss of an owl nest and eggs. California Public Utilities Commission regulation of PG&E’s utility vegetation management preempts the local tree ordinances; however, PG&E takes the protection of birds seriously. As such, we held a safety stand down on Monday, March 4, with our contracted vegetation management crews to reinforce our bird protection plans and investigate the issue further so that it does not happen again. We’ll also be hosting additional training on our bird protection plans in the next couple of weeks. We have apologized to the homeowner and will be working with local bird conservation groups to help support bird populations in the area.”
KSBY also reached out to Davey, the company PG&E hired to do the tree trimming, and was told workers inspected the tree before the trimming took place and did not see any nests or bird eggs. They also said the company is providing more training to its employees on bird identification in trees.
Rodgers says following the incident a local arborist volunteered to put a kestrel box up after the birds kept returning to the area. The owls, however, have not been seen recently.
“The owls were coming back for the first few days after looking for their nest and eggs, but clearly they’re not there so they stopped coming back,” Rodgers said.
