Friends of Animals Declares Victory After UI Accomplishes its Monk Parakeet Removal Goals

United Illuminating seems to have accomplished everything it wanted to accomplish with its program to capture monk parakeets in West Haven, Milford and Stratford, and send them off to be killed. It had targeted 103 nests and, as of Tuesday, it had cleared 103 nests of birds. About 200 birds were shipped to the USDA and killed. Now the company will start taking down the nests.

Having watched UI complete its job despite her organization’s protests, Priscilla Feral, the noisy leader of Friends of Animals, has declared victory.

Her rationale? Some of the birds in the nests escaped unharmed. Here's how the AP quoted her this evening:

"It was a parrot victory," Feral said. "UI agreed not to capture any of the escapees, and we know there were a lot of them."

FOA will file a lawsuit, she says, to force UI to solve its monk parakeet problem in a more humane way. That sounds fine to me. If UI is smart, it will figure something out before then, get Feral to agree that it’s a good plan, and then take a cue from its nemesis – declare victory and get out.

Wednesday morning update: Here's today's New Haven Register story for more.