‘We don’t do work that way’: Pest-control company defends worker cited over alleged bird poisoning

The CEO of a Broward pest-control company is defending an employee who is accused of wrongfully poisoning federally protected birds that were leaving droppings outside a Weston restaurant.

The boat-tailed grackles, which are native and protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, were seen on video exhibiting the effects of being poisoned in late January at the Weston Town Center, according to records from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

But Bill Robles, the president and CEO of AAA Pest Control, said his company has been in Broward for almost 30 years and only aims to do the best work possible. “None of this is intention,” he told the South Florida Sun Sentinel about the citations and concerns.

In an interview Thursday, Robles said AAA Pest Control, based in Oakland Park, was called to help because the birds were creating a problem for the restaurant and “defecating all over.”

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says it gave the employee, Thomas Nickerson, two citations, accusing him of not using a product according to its labeling, and of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, records show.

Robles said, “Tom has been with me for 25 years, and he’s an excellent employee.” Contacted by the Sun Sentinel on Thursday, Nickerson declined to comment.

Concern for the birds

The birds drew attention in late January at the Weston Town Center. An Argentinian restaurant at the center, Graziano’s, had sought help to address the birds, and the restaurant was told it would be handled in a safe, humane way, a restaurant spokesperson told WPLG-Ch. 10.

A bystander captured video of the birds flailing on the ground at the shopping center. In the footage, several birds also were seen in a cardboard box not moving. A city commissioner who saw the video of the birds on social media reported the incident, according to records released Thursday by the wildlife commission.

When an officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation arrived at the shopping center on Jan. 24, “the birds in the video were no longer there,” the officer wrote in a report.

On Jan. 31, Dr. Charlotte Cournoyer, the medical director for the South Florida Wildlife Center, emailed the FWC to report that a resident had brought in one of the birds, a juvenile male, that had died, the FWC said.

According to the FWC, Cournoyer told authorities about the bird’s injuries: It had been “flattened completely by a vehicle due to being affected by the Avitrol. Usually when a live bird is hit by a car, they have some degree of trauma but are not flat like a pancake because they were still moving at the time of being ran over.

“It seemed more likely that the bird was not moving at all because it would have had to been right underneath a tire to be flattened as it was,” according to the report.

The body was being held in case the FWC requested it for testing or evidence, but by the time they did, the staff realized it had accidentally been put in the refrigerator and not the freezer and the carcass had disintegrated, Cournoyer told the Sun Sentinel.

Meant to remove pest birds

Avitrol, a chemically treated grain bait, “is used as a chemical frightening agent to remove pest birds from a given location,” Avitrol’s website says. It has been approved for use in the U.S. by the Environmental Protection Agency since 1972. A company representative for Avitrol could not be reached for comment.

When the AAA Pest Control employee was summoned back to Graziano’s on Jan. 25, he told investigators he administered the product Avitrol once in three locations within a half-hour on Jan. 23, according to the FWC records.

That included placing it on the roof of the restaurant, on top of a kiosk just outside of the restaurant’s entrance, and on the floor near a tree close to the outside seating of the restaurant.

The employee “explained he administered a silver-dollar size portion of Avitrol in each location, and monitored from a parking spot until all the Avitrol was consumed by the boat-tailed grackles,” the FWC said.

Florida state wildlife investigators said the pest-control employee reported he did not have permits from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as is required, to remove the boat-tailed grackles, a protected species.

Most birds, including the boat-tailed grackles shown in the social media posts, are federally protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. This makes it is illegal to take or possess any part of them, including their eggs or nests without a specific federal permit, the FWC said.

According to the FWC, “the officers determined that the pest control company employee improperly administered the drug Avitrol to the birds at the restaurant. The behavior of the birds affected by this drug is meant to be a deterrent to other birds. However, the drug was not administered in a manner consistent with the product label.”

The FWC was not specific on its incident report of what was not followed according to the label.

Once the Avitrol was consumed, Mr. Nickerson said he did not continue to monitor the area and left. The following day, Jan. 26, investigators met again with Nickerson to issue his citations and read him his Miranda Rights “as we had more questions and Mr. Nickerson elected to not speak with us any further,” according to the report.

Robles, the CEO of AAA Pest Control, said the product was mixed properly. “We don’t do work that way,” Robles told the Sun Sentinel.

Robles said he didn’t realize a permit was needed, but disagreed there was any wrongdoing and said the birds were only slightly affected “and came back to life” and flew away. He said the bird that died was hit by a car.

Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sunsentinel.com. Follow on X, formerly Twitter, @LisaHuriash