White doves bring peace following events of 9-11

By Michael Picarella Acorn Staff Writer

ADAM DAVIS/The Acorn PEACE FLIGHT-Janice Lee releases her doves, but this time at an Agoura/Oak Park/Las Virgenes Chamber of Commerce meeting last Thursday night at the Adobe Cantina in the city of Agoura Hills.

Janice Lee, a Calabasas City Councilwoman who operates a private dove rental service, took part in ceremonies last week in which 911 of the white birds were released at Lake Hollywood Park near the Hollywood sign.

Lee’s contribution to the KIIS FM-sponsored event was 40 doves.

Lee has "flown" her birds for about 15 years. The doves have been used in ceremonies across the Conejo and San Fernando valleys.

The average number of birds released at a memorial, Lee said, is about 21. The councilwoman has kept up to 200 birds at a time, but now uses only 40 because she said her city obligations keep her busy.

The birds are specially trained to fly back home once they’ve been released from a location.

"The happier (the birds) are in their home loft and if they have mates waiting at home and babies on the nest," that motivates their return, Lee said. "They’re very dedicated to their family."

Some of Lee’s birds have flown more than 300 miles to return home, taking up to months at a time. Their instinct to navigate over long distances isn’t fully understood, but they eventually find their way.

Finding 911 doves trained to fly back home wasn’t an easy task, Lee said. The business of flying birds is very competitive and bird trainers don’t often work together.

"Everybody’s been working together to try and connect to anyone we knew from our own competitive businesses that had lots of white birds so we could basically say, ‘Look, this is one time where we’re going to fly all our birds together and it’s not about you got a job and I got a job,’" Lee said.

At 8:46 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, exactly one year and four hours from when the first plane hit the twin towers in New York, Rick Dees of KIIS-FM and his guest Simon Cowell from the hit show, "American Idol," announced the release of the doves.

While Dees aplauded the sight of 911 doves flying into the air, Cowell said he was concerned about the birds crashing into the blades of the radio station helicopter hovering above. But the birds’ flyers said that wasn’t possible because doves sense danger—even predator birds in nearby trees—and will always fly in a safe direction.

"This is such an extraordinary event," Lee said. "I don’t think we’ve seen a flock quite this dramatic and quite this large."

She later learned it was the largest bird release in the continental United States.

As a professional in the bird flying business, Lee said she doesn’t anticipate another event involving so many birds. The Sept. 11 observance will go down in history, she said.