Wonder what's happened to MBPM-2

Remember these birds? 12/9/04


Since so many of you started reading this website during the Pale Male crisis, I thought it's time to bring up that painful subject again, as the second anniversary of the nest removal crisis approaches.


The fatal memorandum

Back in 1993 when the management of 927 Fifth Ave. took down the hawk nest for the first time, they may not have known that the removal was a violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act , a federal law. Or perhaps they didn’t think anyone would zap them for it. But the hawkwatchers did indeed zap. They called the Fish & Wildlife service who threatened to impose a whopping fine and warned the management never to do it again.

Ten years of successful nesting followed. Consequently the hawkwatchers were lulled into a false sense of security. Innocently, they believed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act would keep anything untoward from happening to the beloved nest.

Their trust was betrayed. On April 15, 2003, under the aegis of an openly anti-conservation administration in Washington, a new US Fish and Wildlife memorandum—MBPM-2 –was affixed to the law. It announced that henceforth there would be a new interpretation of clause 703 in the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the one that prohibits the removal of any native American bird’s nest.

MBPM-2 stated that from henceforth, nest removal was prohibited only when there were eggs or birds within a nest. It claimed that a nest without eggs or resident birds had clearly been abandoned. Until the nest-removal crisis, nobody had heard of MBPM-2 .

Well, not exactly nobody. Somebody connected with the management of 927 Fifth Avenue was so well informed about this arcane new regulation that a lawyer for the building applied to the US Fish & Wildlife Service for a permit to remove a hawks’ nest from a 12th floor window ledge of a New York City apartment house on Fifth Avenue and 74th Street. The permit was quickly granted. On December 7, 2004 the nest was removed.

The US Fish & Wildlife Service is an organization federally mandated to protect all native American wildlife. MBPM-2 makes that mandate a travesty. At the time the permit to remove the nest was granted, thousands of people knew that Pale Male’s nest hadn’t been abandoned. The redtails had been re-using the nest year after year for ten years. Yet according to the new Memorandum, it had been legally removed. And any future nest could be removed at any time between early June, when the young fledge, and the following March, when new eggs are laid.

Unprotected by law, the hawkwatchers were forced to appeal to the
court of public opinion. They mounted their noisy protests outside the windows of the Fifth Avenue billionaires and won their battle. But did they win the war?

[Though it is being contested, MBPM-2 is still in effect.]