The State - News from Oct. 26, 1986

It doesn’t pay to be a coot--old or young--at Mountain View’s Shoreline Golf Course. After a month of trying to chase off a flock of 3,000 coots that had been damaging the golf course, officials opened fire on the birds, killing about 170 of them. Golf course officials first tried to chase the coots off with fireworks, blanks and air deodorizers, to no avail. In addition to tearing up the greens, the birds use the course as an 18-hole toilet, according to Shoreline manager Glen Lyles. Last year 700 coots were killed. “I’ll give them a big E for effort,” said Warren Brodrick, director of the Humane Society of Santa Clara Valley. “But I still don’t want to see them shot. We don’t condone it. We never have, and we never will.”