HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – United Illuminating Co. refused Tuesday to suspend its program to eradicate monk parakeets from utility poles, and state officials said they are, for the moment, powerless to stop the killing.

Lawmakers, power company officials and some bird advocates met for almost two hours at the Capitol to discuss the parakeet problem.

The power company says the eradication plan is necessary because the birds are building huge nests near transformers in southern Connecticut, creating fire hazards and the potential for power outages.

This month, they began capturing the birds and removing the nests.

Under state law, the birds are handed over to the United States Department of Agriculture, which euthanizes them.

Because the parakeets, native to South America, are considered an invasive species under state law, the USDA told lawmakers an executive order requires they be killed.

“We cannot at the moment, stop what is happening,” said state Rep. Richard Roy, D-Milford, the chairman of the legislature’s Environment Committee. “We have learned where we have to work, where we have to go.”

Over 130 of the green and gray pigeon-sized birds have been captured since the program began two weeks ago.

UI estimated it would take six weeks to remove the 103 monk parakeet nests from poles in West Haven, Milford, Stratford and Bridgeport.

The nests can each weigh more than 200 pounds and hold more than 40 parakeets.

Dwight Smith, a bird expert at Southern Connecticut State University, said he told lawmakers and power officials that killing the birds won’t work.

An eradication program was tried 30 years ago, and the birds just came back, he said.

“So why can’t we come up with a different solution?” he asked.

The Humane Society of the United States and others have asked UI to take down the nests without killing the birds, then send out crews to dismantle them when the birds try to rebuild. The birds, they said, will eventually learn to build elsewhere.

Al Carbone, a UI spokesman, said the company will look at the costs of such a maintenance program, but he did not promise one.

“We are going to continue to remove the nests as we have already planned,” he said.

The pigeon-sized monk parakeets, natives of South America, were imported into the United States by the thousands in the 1960s.

Birds that were accidentally or intentionally released by owners and breeders have established wild colonies in cities all over North America.

The public, including the Norwalk-based environmental group Friends of Animals, were kept out of the meeting.

The group’s president, Priscilla Feral, accused lawmakers of knuckling under to the power company.

“This can’t wait,” she said. “We need an immediate halt to this program to minimize the destruction.”