OXNARD : City Officials Put Coot Shoot on Hold

Oxnard officials are rethinking a longstanding policy to gun down mud hens that flock to the city-owned River Ridge Golf Course after receiving complaints from nearby homeowners about the sunrise practice.

About 30 angry residents turned out at City Hall on Tuesday night to protest the most recent shootings, which took place last month and earlier this month. They threatened legal action if the shootings continue and called for the resignation of city employees who ordered the gunfire and the removal of council members who supported the action.

“It’s frightening, it’s dangerous and it’s wrong to bring in men with shotguns and kill these birds,” River Ridge resident Julie Prince told council members. “I don’t want people shooting in my back yard.”

In recent autumns, shotgun-toting volunteers have laid waste to hundreds of the migratory birds, commonly known as coots.

The black swamp birds, which flock by the thousands during the cool months to a man-made lake at the golf course, ruin playing surfaces in their search for worms and litter the greens with their droppings.

In the two recent coot shoots, hunters killed about 250 birds, prompting complaints from area residents and resulting in a deluge of bad publicity.

Oxnard found itself on national television at the center of the great coot shoot debate, Oxnard City Manager Vern Hazen said.

“We were doing what we have done for several years,” said Hazen, at a loss to explain the sudden outcry over dead coots.

Nevertheless, the coot shoot has been put on hold for now.

Hazen said Tuesday that despite a permit from the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife that allows the city to shoot 400 coots each migratory season, he wants to discuss with River Ridge neighbors other ways of dealing with the birds.