Ongoing City of San Antonio efforts to displace migratory birds runs counter to the sustained message from park visitors and neighbors in favor of protecting the area’s ecology—including migratory birds.
Greg Harman
The City of San Antonio continued its years-long assault on migratory birds in Brackenridge Park over the Easter weekend. With holiday campers complaining of the sound of pyrotechnics and board-knocking awakening them early in the morning and disturbing them through the day. City officials and contractors need the trees clear of normally federally protected birds as they prepare to remove dozens of trees—including several large elder trees favored by the birds along the river banks—for a bond-funded redevelopment project intended to “tell the story of water” in San Antonio.
Members of the Lipan-Apache “Hoosh Chetzel” Native American Church sued to modify the project and protect the birds and trees that they consider part of a particular “sacred ecology” that exists in the river’s headwaters. U.S. District Judge Fred Biery in Gary Perez & Matilde Torres vs the City of San Antonio refused to stop the project or require the City to seek alternatives by appealing to the U.S. Department of Interior. But he did require the City to make space available along the river bank for members of the Church for religious ceremony.
At two recent forums convened by the City of San Antonio and the Brackenridge Park Conservancy, the overwhelming message from the community was for preserving and protecting the park and its natural ecological systems—including migratory birds. Meanwhile, bird and tree protectors continue to gather in the park in hopes that the project may still be avoided. Recently, migratory birds pushed to the north of the park have come under attack by property owners there, encouraged along by local media.
Deceleration spoke with several bird and tree protectors on Easter Day, 2024.
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