In what may be a legislative first for San Francisco, the city’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday banned the feeding of a tourist attraction. A flock of wild green-and-red parakeets spend the evening happy hour in downtown Ferry Park, where dozens of locals and curious tourists have been assembling for the last year or so to feed the birds, often by hand. Children giggle; their parents snap photos.

But that behavior — the feeding, not the giggling — has upset some longtime bird watchers, who fear the parakeets will become too domesticated to feed on their own. And on Tuesday the board voted 10 to 1 to ban it. Chief among the ban’s supporters is Mark Bittner, a 55-year-old writer and formerly homeless musician whose own feeding of the birds was made famous in a 2005 documentary film, “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.”

Mr. Bittner, whose wife, Judy Irving, shot the film, said he did not want to ruin other people’s fun but was simply concerned about the birds, who he said could be snatched or might bite unfamiliar feeders. He said he stopped feeding the parakeets in 2006.  “In some ways, people see it as, ‘Well, he did it, why can’t we?’ ” said Mr. Bittner, who credits the feeding — and film — with changing his life. “But I was doing it alone, and I was careful to never let other people feed them.”

Mr. Bittner’s sentiment was echoed by Supervisor Aaron Peskin, the board president, who said “copycat feeders” were threatening the “physical and psychological health” of the parakeets. “It’s kind of like what we’re taught when we go to Yosemite, not to feed the wild animals,” Mr. Peskin said. “I know a number of people are getting an immense amount of pleasure from feeding these birds, and they’re well-meaning folks, but it’s necessary to protect the birds.”

But for some fans of the evening feedings, the board’s action smacked of favoritism. Jeff Ente, a marketing consultant who said he started feeding the birds in April 2006, said Mr. Bittner was a curmudgeon who was simply being proprietary over his former co-stars. “I understand why it would be difficult for him to see other people feeding the birds. If you came to a park and saw a bunch of strangers feeding your kids, you wouldn’t like it either,” Mr. Ente said. “I feel for the guy. But it’s really been a remarkably well-behaved crowd.”

An online forum devoted to the parakeets quickly grew heated as word of a ban on feeding spread. “It’s a bit like Baghdad in there,” said Mr. Ente, who started the forum, which he said had been “decimated by sectarian strife over this parrot conflict.” Mr. Peskin says the new ban, which specifically forbids feeding “red-masked parakeets,” the park’s breed, will be enforced with signs and police warnings at first. “Obviously the city doesn’t want to give tickets to folks for this,” Mr. Peskin said. “But if we have to, we will.”
(By JESSE McKINLEY, New York Times, 06/06/2007)