The Region : Gull Decline: No Violation

The Reagan Administration has decided that water withdrawals by Los Angeles from Mono Lake, blamed for a decline in gull reproduction, do not amount to a criminal violation under laws protecting migratory birds. “The population level of migratory birds at Mono Lake has declined for a variety of reasons,” Marian Horn, principal deputy solicitor at the U.S. Department of Interior, said. The “fact that an area is no longer as productive and valuable a habitat for migratory birds as it once was . . . does not constitute a violation” of the Migratory Bird Act, the Interior official said in a letter to Rep. Richard H. Lehman (D-Sanger).