Source: Press Enterprise (Riverside, Calif.)
Menifee, Calif. - Federal wildlife officials are investigating whether employees at Menifee Lakes Country Club broke the law recently when they shot and killed waterfowl gathered at the golf course there.
Bob Cochran was enjoying a hot tub session earlier this month in his back yard overlooking Menifee Lakes Country Club when he said the stillness of the morning was shattered by a shotgun blast.
"We heard this boom, boom - two loud shots," Cochran said this week from his back yard.
Cochran jumped out of the hot tub. He says he was shocked by what he saw next.
Cochran says he watched a golf course employee armed with a shotgun walking away, leaving several of the birds known as coots half-dead.
One of the birds hung on for two hours before finally dying on
the golf course green, Cochran said.
"It was ruthless," Cochran, 64, said of the coots' death. "They were out there writhering and hopping around in pain. They just anguished for hours, writhering there."
Later that day, Cochran filed a complaint with the country club's management and resigned his membership over what he called the birds' "senseless killing."
"I will never golf there again," Cochran said.
Michael Winn, general manager of the Menifee Lakes Country Club, said last week that the course stopped shooting the coots after receiving Cochran's complaint.
"People are taking offense to it, so we have decided to cease using that method," Winn said. "I've instructed my employees not to do that anymore. There will be no more firearms shot."
Killing coots is nothing new around local ponds, lakes and golf courses.
Frequently called mudhens, coots don't enjoy the same admiration as the ducks, for which some people mistake the blackbirds. Unlike ducks, coots have lobed toes and sharp claws, like a chicken. They love to gorge on grass, which is why golf course managers have such contempt for the bird. They also leave behind slimy, sludgelike droppings that golf course employees say damage turfs.
Prior to 1998, Temecula city officials exterminated coots at the Temecula Duck Pond.
A letter from an animal-rights group halted the killings, and the city redesigned the pond in an effort to make the water hole less inviting to the birds.
Others have found alternative solutions to deal with the problem
birds.
At Canyon Lake, the property owners association bought a "coot dog" more than five years ago to scare off the birds.
Officials with the association have said the dog was a great success.
Winn, who plans to use some other nonviolent approach to get rid of the unwanted waterfowl, said he may end up using remote-control boats to annoy the birds in hope of them leaving.
That's not enough for Cochran.
"I want the person who shot these birds to be put in jail," said Cochran, who has contacted federal wildlife officials over the incident.
Marie Palladini, resident agent in charge of the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement in Torrance, said Thursday that she was aware of the situation at Menifee Lakes Country Club, but would not comment on any details.
"It's an open investigation, and our case agent is working on it," Palladini said.
