MORGAN HILL
– 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.
MORGAN HILL – 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, adopted Sept. 3, and effective Oct. 3, it is now unlawful for anyone to disk, plow or otherwise break into or turnover soil upon any property within the city for any purpose including weed abatement or management if the land meets certain criteria:
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.
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.
