Red-crowned parrots are beloved in LA County. Who is holding them captive?

For decades, the residents of Temple City, California, had learned to love their shrill bird neighbors—expecting to be woken by a cacophony of squawks and anticipating their return at dusk to roost in the trees.

So it came as a shock last month when residents found some of the beloved red-crowned parrots dead, entangled in traps. Others found their feathers scattered along the road.

“I was just shocked,” said Temple City resident Norma Gonzalez, 53, noting that the birds — a nonnative species whose population exploded around the 1970s and 1980s, possibly after pet parrots were released or escaped, it became emblematic of the city about 15 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

“How can anyone do this?” she said.

The mystery deepened on October 27, when a video emerged shared on TikTok A man with a ponytail appeared to yank a net containing a handful of squawking parrots from a tree in eastern Temple City before jumping over a brick fence into a parking lot and climbing into a white Ford sedan – birds in hand .

Ceidy Cordova, 44, said she uploaded the footage after her husband caught the man on camera a day earlier. “It just broke my heart,” Ms. Cordova said, noting that she had contacted officials from Temple City and the San Gabriel Valley Humane Society to warn them.

“They’re always there,” she said of the parrots, adding that her children often opened the windows at home to listen to their calls. “Instead of hearing sirens or cars, it’s nice to hear our birds.”

Detective Sgt. Richard Lewis of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in Temple City said he first became aware of the parrot deaths late last month. Officers found nets in the trees along Rosemead Boulevard, just north of Las Tunas Drive, and informed city officials, who removed them.

Under questioning by sheriff’s deputies, the man in the TikTok video denied setting up the nets, Sergeant Lewis said. He said the man told authorities he “saw a bird in the middle of the street; saw that the bird was alive; he picked it up, took it home, and as he unwrapped the bird’s gauze, the bird flew away.

The man, who is not a Temple City resident but lives nearby, told officers that on a previous occasion he had also seen a dead parrot that had become entangled in a net and “threw the bird away.” Authorities have not received any other information about who might have set the nets, Sergeant Lewis said. “We have no idea.”

Temple City said it is working with the sheriff’s department to investigate the matter, and that members of the public should come forward if they have any information about who set the traps.

Parrots, which are native to the forests of northeastern Mexico, are taken into account threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature due to hunting, trapping and habitat loss. But in some American cities, populations of these birds are booming, says Simon Kiacz, an avian ecologist at Texas A&M University. studied why the parrots do so well in urban environments.

“What the parrots want is what the people want,” he said, referring to the palms, year-round fruit trees and nut- and berry-bearing plants found in the birds’ favorite neighborhoods in Florida, South America. Texas and California. “We’ve created these little habitats or these little oases,” said Dr. Kiacz, noting that there are about 3,000 red-crowned parrots in Los Angeles County.

The parrots are protected underneath a California state code that prohibits the capture of birds and mammals, but Dr. Kiacz said it is not uncommon to find poached chicks sold at flea markets in the United States. Online listings advertise red-crowned parrots hundreds of dollars or more.

“They don’t make good pets,” said Dr. Kiacz, noting that the animals can live up to 40 years and have the mental capabilities of a child from about six months to a year old. Despite misconceptions, they cannot talk well like other parrots, and have a tendency to scream. “They hurt a lot,” he said. “I think a lot of people understand them and realize, ‘Oh, this was a mistake.'”

Some residents of Temple City said they were frustrated by the authorities’ response and felt that the parrots needed to be better protected. But the birds haven’t always been universally loved in their adopted home.

“These wild green parrots in Temple City are out of control and something needs to be done,” one resident complained in an Letter from 2017 published in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. “Twice a day they flock like locusts to the telephone poles and trees, sounding like nails on a chalkboard for at least an hour each time,” she wrote. “Who will save us?”

Ms. Gonzalez, who saw the birds’ feathers near her home, said that although they were noisy, she loved them. “They’re just beautiful little creatures,” she said.