Residents Complain UC Berkeley Has Failed to Build Enough Campaniles
Local residents were incensed after BerkeleySide reported that Annie, the Campanile’s resident peregrine falcon, has produced her 15th chick. Residents sued the university challenging the impact of letting falcons reproduce unchecked on campus. Shill Raptor, president of Neighbors Against Gyrfalcon (NAG), cited the fact Annie’s offspring are now establishing their own territory. NAG claims, “Cal needs to take more ownership over what is happening in the community because they are forcing juvenile fledglings into the community, and Berkeley doesn’t have the resources to help.”
In their lawsuit, NAG argues that UC Berkeley should build additional Campanile towers throughout campus. “UC Berkeley has invited this problem by letting Annie copulate with abandon thus letting hordes of peregrine falcons displace pigeons, sparrows and bushtits. Even worse they feed them to their hatchlings” according to the Backside Neighborhood Consortium. “Until this problem is rectified through the construction of new Campaniles we are forced to demand a moratorium on avian copulation.” The groups argue that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires public universities to mitigate the environmental impacts of growth.”
The city recently accepted a settlement with UC Berkeley that will have the university pay the city 83 bushels of chicken feed over 16 years to support other local wildlife. Mayor Jesse Arreguin said, “the settlement offers the city chickenfeed while the moratorium would compromise the city’s reputation as the home of free love.”
the moratorium would compromise the city’s reputation as the home of free love.
Mayor Arreguin
Councilmember Terry Taplin offered a more succinct explanation for the city’s compromise. “Look, when half the city’s residents spend their entire spring watching the Cal Falcons Nest Cam, it would be political suicide to cancel them. It would be the moral equivalent of banning Heartstopper. Good luck next elections cycle.”
Councilmember Hahn also backed the settlement and questioned the CEQA arguments. “Look I have staked my political brand on opposing tall buildings. The addition of multiple Campanile towers is a non-starter for me.” Some observes questioned the practicality of a copulation ban suggesting it was not feasible in the first place. NAG’s response was, “since when has feasibility or practicalities been a determining factor in Berkeley policy?”