Posted on 12/07/2005 8:07:11 AM PST by Fawn
As if hanging out in a dump and eating garbage aren’t bad enough, those vultures flapping around Palm Beach County’s landfill have a new worry these days:
A government sharpshooter is out to kill them.
Vultures, sea gulls and other birds evoke a Hitchcockian scene as they swoop over the Palm Beach County landfill, near 45th Street in suburban West Palm Beach and in close proximity to the turnpike.
Not every bird, mind you. Just enough to persuade the rest of the bulky carrion-muncher’s to flock someplace else.
Managers of the landfill near 45th Street in suburban West Palm Beach say they’re trying to protect motorists on Florida’s Turnpike, where state troopers blame one recent crash on a close encounter of car vs. vulture. In the same area, a 13-month-old girl almost drowned in a canal last year after her aunt swerved to avoid an unidentified, low-flying bird.
So the county has brought in a U.S. Department of Agriculture sharpshooter, and has obtained a federal wildlife permit allowing the execution of up to 100 black vultures and 200 turkey vultures although managers say they mainly hope to scare the birds away. The permit also allows the killing of up to 600 sea gulls, which the USDA accuses of hampering vulture dispersal activities. The permit expires March 31.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service defends the strategy, saying a few judicious killings can increase the effectiveness of kinder, gentler shoo-em methods, such as scaring the birds with explosives and dazzling them with lasers. Once shot, the birds are supposed to be displayed as a deterrent.
But environmentalists denounce the tactics as well, overkill. They say they also fear for the safety of the endangered bald eagles and snail kites that nest and feed near the landfill, one of South Florida’s premiere bird magnets.
It defies reason, said Rosa Durando, conservation director of the Audubon Society of the Everglades. What are you going to do, kill all the vultures?... A vulture is just a primitive animal you’re not going to teach them anything.
She also questioned the skills of the USDA’s sharpshooter. I don’t know if he knows a snail kite from a vulture or an eagle, or how bored he might get.
After Durando complained Tuesday to county commissioners, they agreed to scrutinize the strategy next month when they meet as the county’s Solid Waste Authority.
What about a scarecrow? Commissioner Mary McCarty asked. Do we have to shoot them?
A complaint about the vulture shootings also prompted a cruelty investigation last month by the county Animal Control Division, which dropped the case after learning of the federal OK.
Authority Operations Director Mark Eyeington said his staff has consulted county and federal biologists while trying to protect both public safety and nearby bird rookeries. Besides kites and eagles, the area near the landfill plays host to wood storks, herons, egrets and other wading birds at times, more than you’ll find in Everglades National Park.
Were concerned about bird populations ourselves, Eyeington said. We don’t want to indiscriminately scare off any of the birds that were trying to protect.
Marc Bruner, the authority’s environmental director, said his agency has received several complaints about low-swooping vultures on the turnpike, especially in winter. And the lasers and noisemakers they’ve been using since last summer aren’t working.
Its fairly easy to tell the difference between a black vulture, a turkey vulture and a snail kite, Bruner added.
USDA managers in Tampa and Gainesville did not return phone calls this week seeking comment, but department documents say the agency expects to kill as many as 125 vultures at the landfill. Eyeington couldn’t say how many vultures have died so far, and said he doesn’t know of any gulls being shot.
The USDA has employed similarly lethal strategies to scare birds away from airports, where they can crash planes, and the wildlife service has allowed fish farmers to protect their stocks by killing birds such as cormorants.
But killing birds to protect cars is unusual, a leader of a national landfill association said Tuesday.
I’ve never run into a place where the birds were going on highways and harassing cars that’s a new one, said Ed Repa, director of environmental programs for the National Solid Wastes Management Association.
Repa said killing birds can work as a last resort after managers exhaust remedies such as explosions, fences, overhead wires and recordings of birds distress calls. But its usually unpopular.
Ever since Jonathan Livingston Seagulls book, people don’t want you doing that to birds, he said. Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Jorge Delahoz said he doesn’t know of any major threat the vultures pose on the turnpike. He said troopers dealt with one crash last summer in which a big bird collided with a car, whose driver estimated the bird was flying 110 mph.
Delahoz couldn’t say whether a vulture caused the November 2004 crash in which an SUV landed upside-down in a canal along the turnpike, submerging 13-month-old Shakirah Harley until a good Samaritan rescued her.
People hit small birds all the time, Delahoz said. Normally you have a bunch of feathers on the car and its no big deal.
Charles Lee, senior vice president of Audubon of Florida, said he suspects the landfill is drawing an unusual amount of vultures by failing to cover the garbage properly. Eyeington said his staff is covering the waste with fill at the end of every workday but he acknowledged they've had to bury more garbage than usual because of problems with their incinerator.
Lee called for an investigation of the whole operation.
We find that there a lot of prejudice against vultures, he said. The idea that gulls and vultures are expendable is part of the problem.
Rush would have a field day covering this on his radio show. Hopefully he's seen this.
Uh-huh. Palm Beach Post employs PETA activists?
Sea gulls and dumps go together like Democrats and socialized medicine. You just can't seperate the two.
And in both cases, it's not a bad idea to leave a few dead ones in the road to discourage the others. I know it works with pigeons because they don't nest on my house anymore.
I sent it to him....LOL
WHat really kills me...is that people are crying down here about lack of birds....and blame cats!! They don't realize that hurricanes, urban sprawl, chemicals sprayed on lawns and from the air....and now WIldlife Commission shooting them is the real reason we don't see any birds down here anymore! Ignorance....
Even ships at sea have their gull groupies hoping for a free handout or a free ride.
Yeah, but when they were told that "landfill vulture" is not a derogatory term for lawyer, the protestors were satisfied and backed off.
Just claim the birds will be used to feed the homeless and all will be well. Who can oppose feeding the homeless?
A "Vegan" and/or a PETA member?
The problem here was the driver, not the bird.
I've driven by those Florida landfills and the sharpshooter will need a gatling gun on the side of a C-130 if they want to see any progress on reducing the number of birds.
Put a couple of kids with sling shoots out there and they will be able to kill the 600 birds that they've agreed to before noon.
What a joke. Those birds are like demonRAT voters waiting for the "voting bus" just moving from one garbage dump to the next.
Ummm....do they really think that carrion eaters will be deterred by more dead meat?
The ambulance chasers are to be counted as vultures for the purposes of this permit.
Now we're getting somewhere!
Good point.
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