Special to the Town Crier
In a controversy that may prove quite a hoot for some, the Mountain View City Council voted Sept. 14 to postpone creation of a proposed dog park at Shoreline Park until an environmental impact report is completed. This all stems from possible impacts on the park's owl population.
The city will retain a consultant to conduct a study of the effects of the dog run on the area's wildlife inhabitants and hopes the results will be ready by the council's Dec. 7 meeting.
The dog park was first slated for Rengstorff Park at a City Council meeting on Aug. 3. However, Rengstorff residents protested. The Council then voted to establish a fenced-in dog run at Shoreline, adjacent to the kite-flying area near the wildlife area's gate. Dogs are presently banned from the Shoreline Recreation Area in Mountain View, although they can be walked on a leash at the area's Palo Alto trails at the terminus of San Antonio Road.
But owl supporters, led by Shoreline volunteer ranger Vada Williams, said that the dog run will threaten a burrowing owl population that, she estimates, is near 400. Williams' letter-writing campaign to city council members and local newspapers has gained momentum in recent weeks.
Citing the overuse of Shoreline wildlife sanctuary with two restaurants and the Rengstorff House and their attendant threats to the wildlife sanctuary, Williams said that the burrowing owls will be creatures who are the "most disturbed" by a dog park. "What kind of logic allows a group of supposedly responsible people to approve a dog park in a wildlife sanctuary, a place where the (wildlife) residents of the area will be frightened by the barks and presence of dogs?" Williams said.
But David Muela, the city's community services director, said the city is trying to balance the needs of dog owners with environmentalists and other recreational users. Mayor Mary Lou Zoglin, while conceding that the council did not anticipate that the proposed dog park would have a greater impact on the owls than the parking lots at Shoreline, said that the city would now definitely look at the impacts.
Moreover, there is some difference of opinion among longtime birders about the actual impact of a dog park on the habitat of burrowing owls.
"If the owls are not driven away by a thousand bicyclists, they won't be disturbed by a hundred dogs," said Richard Carlson, who has participated in a major piece of the San Jose Christmas bird count for more than 20 years and serves on the boards of a number of local birding organizations, including the Audubon Society.
"Burrowing owls are highly habituated and are used to having lots of people around," Carlson said. "The beauty of this bird is that it is very tolerant. In fact, there are college campuses in Florida that house hundreds of owls. If you leave them in an open meadow and don't disturb them, don't pave over them, they're quite happy. The birds will get used to something behind a fence."
In fact, Carlson said, domestic wildcats at Shoreline are much more of a menace to the burrowing owl population than dogs.