The Oakland A’s got a thumbs down Monday from the Golden Gate Audubon Society, which claimed the team’s proposal to build a ballpark on land owned by the Peralta Community College District is a bad deal for birds.
The influential advocacy group, which has more than 7,000 members in Oakland and nearby cities, said the proposed ballpark in the Eastlake neighborhood would be disastrous for nearly 200 species of ducks, herons, songbirds, nesting cormorants and fish that make their homes in Lake Merritt, the nation’s oldest wildlife refuge.
“We’re not anti-baseball. We love the A’s, but we want them to stay where they are,” said Cindy Margulis, the executive director of Golden Gate Audubon.