Dori and Louie’s peregrine family in Downtown Pittsburgh will be split up and their four chicks — less than two weeks old — will be permanently taken away from them if the development at Keystone Flats acts on the “taking” permit they have received from U.S. Fish and Wildlife.
In early March Dori laid eggs at her 3rd Avenue nest instead of the Gulf Tower(*). Meanwhile the building below the nest is being renovated by BET Investments. When completed, 319 Third Avenue will become luxury student apartments called Keystone Flats.
Peregrines defend their eggs and chicks from human intruders by buzzing people who come too close. Dori and Louie buzz the workmen on the Keystone roof. The developer wants the peregrines and their nest to go away so they applied to the Federal government and were granted a permit to remove the chicks. I have learned from the PA Game Commission that the chicks would be raised by a rehabber. (UPDATE on May 2: New information in John Hayes’ article in the Post-Gazette.)
If the developer is willing to wait 30-35 days(**) the nest and the peregrines will go away on their own. By that time the chicks will learn to fly and will leave Third Avenue. Their parents will follow them. Problem solved.
Taking the chicks won’t make the peregrines stop buzzing the site. Peregrines do not “shut off” when their chicks are gone but instead remain where the chicks used to be and continue to attack until their anger and hormones quiet down. This may take weeks or months, depending on the individual birds.
The decision to remove Dori and Louie’s chicks rests on the shoulders of BET Investments. Their project has a permit but they don’t have to act on it. This is their first development in the city of Pittsburgh. They probably don’t realize how much we love our peregrines.
If you want the chicks to remain with their parents, please voice your concerns to the contacts below. Be polite and courteous.
BET Investments
200 Dryden Road, Suite 2000
Dresher, PA 19025
Phone:215-938-7300
Fax:215-938-8651
email: info@betinvestments.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/betinvestments/ (update on 4/30/2018: this link might not work)
Twitter: twitter.com/betinvestments1
(photo credits: The photo of Dori, Louie and 4 chicks is a stand-in from 2014 when their chicks were the same age as this year’s are now. We don’t have photos of the family this year.
Building photo by Lori Maggio in 2013)
(*) The Third Avenue nest is at the base of an air shaft. To avoid this problem next year, I suggest that in July or August the developer permanently blocks bird access to the air shaft. The peregrines will then nest at the Gulf Tower — or they will choose yet another building.
(**) The chicks will begin leaving around May 29. It will take a few days for all of them to complete the process, as is normal.
Shame on US Fish and Wildlife for granting this permit! Double shame on BET Investments.
Let me agree with you from Italy, as peregrines fans know no boundaries!
This is such a horrible movement for one to take at this time. Hopefully you will have the sense to wait until the Peregrine Falcon Season is over. The Construction of the new Hulton bridge was changed due to the eagles there. Please show compassion for these amazing creatures! Hopefully you can understand and realize how important that these amazing creatures are very important in controlling the pigeons Ih town.
If it were an Eagle would you do the same? This is cruel and heartless. Please leave them be until they are all gone.
It seems to me that PA Fish and Wildlife doesn’t give a crap about wildlife. All they care about is money. 🙁
Patti Ollendyke, the permit is not from the state of Pennsylvania. It is a federal-level permit from U.S. Fish and Wildlife.
Email sent with link to your blog.
I’ve sent them messages. Karma to them if they do this. It makes me sick.
Can the news media be informed? Love to see them inform the public, they have been so good showing everyone about the good, and sometime bad, antics of our wonderful birds..and maybe that will hit home with BET Investments. Wonderful Blog-thank you so much Kate.
email sent and post shared
Oh dear, this is not good news. Let’s hope the developer has a change of heart. I’ll be sending an email, too.
I posted my concerns on Twitter to them. Even though I don’t live in Pittsburgh anymore, I am still concerned.
The media needs to be alerted about this. They love doing stories on our peregrines & eagles, they’ll get behind this. Especially when they realize the developer is from Philadelphia, coming to Pittsburgh to evict our peregrines.
As slow as any government entity moves, I am surprised the feds moved so fast on the permit. Hopefully whatever government agency that would be in charge of stealing the peregrines moves at the typical slow government pace & they don’t start to act until the birds fledge.
I would think that PA state endangered species status would overrule a permit from USFWS. It’s not federal jurisdiction that counts here! Besides I’ve had interactions with USFWS before, more than 15 years ago, and they impressed me NOT ONE BIT! Cavalier attitudes all around!
Has there been any input from the PGC?
What agency granted the permit?
What a shame!
Cindy, the permit was granted by US Fish & Wildlife.
Thanks for answering.
Any idea why it doesn’t matter to them?
I agree with the first post.. shame on US Fish and Wildlife!
BET investments president: Michael Markman 215-938-7115
mmarkman(AT)betinvestsments.comMore executives are listed on their website under the ‘about us’ tab
That email doesn’t work.
Just FYI, I sent an email to the general address for BET that Kate posted in the blog, and added Michael Markman’s email as the CC, but got an error message in my inbox after I sent it, saying his email was undeliverable at this address. The general one did go through.
I tried Peter Clelland’s email instead. He is the VP of Development, and that email went through.
pclelland@betinvestments.com
There is a typo in the email address. Try mmarkham@betinvestments.com
There is a typo in this email address. Try mmarkman@betinvestments.com
Karen, where did you get that email address? His name is Markman, not Markham. I checked the email address above that was provided by Pat against the one in Mr. Markman’s profile on their website, and the issue is that Pat inadvertently added an extra ‘s’ in the middle of the word ‘investment’. Otherwise it is correct. I just resent my email to him, and it went through.
mmarkman@betinvestments.com
If these apartments they are building are for Point Park, why are we not contacting Point Park as well?
I suggest contacting Mayor Peduto asking him to intervene and broker some . If you live in the City, please also contact your Councilperson. As a City resident I don’t want to do business with such a callous developer.
I am calling the local tv stations as I write.
I have emailed him. I agree that someone needs to get this story in the local news. Forget the Post-Gazaette, they are an abomination these days. But a short release to them and to all the local news stations?
I just sent an email to the KDKA news desk explaining the situation and linking to this blog post. More voices wouldn’t hurt!
newsdesk@kdka.com
A perfect fit for “Get Marty”.
When the Green Tree water tower work was halted because a peregrine family began a nest there, it was the PGC (I believe) who stopped the work until the birds were free and clear. PGC, please help! Every involved person should hear from Pittsburghers about the seriousness of this cavalier action of harming this nest. Onward!
Vicki, I believe US Fish and Wildlife overrules PGC. Federal is above State.
Katie, I emailed Mr. Markman. & also pleaded to halt his operation til the babies are grown… Let’s hope all the requests will be heeded. These babies are part of Pgh!!
Katie, I emailed Mr. Markman. & also pleaded to halt his operation til the babies are grown… Let’s hope all the requests will be heeded. These babies are part of Pgh!! I am nor PatriciaWebber ..I AM WEBER. ONE B…..
If our efforts to prevent the developer from this disastrous course of action fails, could the chicks be relocated to the gulf tower scrape? Could the parents find and accept them there? Would all the rehabbers in the area refuse to cooperate until they come to their senses?
Robin, I fear the Gulf Tower is too far away for the parents to see and hear their chicks. They will swoop and stay close in the vicinity of their current nest at Third Ave. The Gulf Tower is almost half a mile away and, at less than two weeks old, the chicks are too young and small to make enough noise to attract their attention.
(I slightly edited your comment)
Maybe BET Investments can be convinced that this is an opportunity for a lot of free good publicity.
Agreed! That was one of my talking points in the email to the VP of Development.
I emailed all of my government representatives—local, state, and federal–asking them to do what they can to stop this. I recommend that other readers do the same. Even a quick email is enough to let them know that there is constituent interest in this matter. Every little bit helps.
You can look up building permits at https://pittsburghpa.buildingeye.com/building to find out that the contractor doing the work at 319 3rd Ave is:
License No: BL003892
License Type: CONTRACTOR
CONTINENTAL BUILDING SYSTEMS
395 E WATERFRONT DR
SUITE 300
HOMESTEAD PA 15120
Searching that address leads to:
https://www.builtbycontinental.com/about-us/contact-us/
This is obviously not the developer/investor who has more say in what happens next, these guys are just carrying out the work, but they are the ones whose employees/subcontractors are affected by the birds behavior. It could help to let them know a lot of people care about this situation.
Done. I just e-mailed Markman. Thank you for providing his email address.
This is such a travesty that they would even think about removing the babies from the nests until they have grown. The developers or whomever should have been aware that we have our very, very special nests in Pittsburgh and have watched them for years. I remember when they demolished the Hulton Bridge, they waited until they knew the bald eagles were safe.
I am in Delaware so I have no clue of the distance but could they be moved to the empty Golf Tower nest?