# VA - 500 black vultures killed



## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

500 black vultures killed
As 'last resort,' Virginia Power pays $5,700 to eliminate birds damaging plant and vehicles

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1137834397221&path=!news&s=1045855934842

Rex Springston at [email protected] or (804) 649-6453.

Federal authorities killed more than 500 vultures near the Dutch Gap boat landing over the past two months.

The vultures had damaged and defecated on equipment at a Dominion Virginia Power plant, and they had scratched and damaged vehicles parked next door at the Chester-area landing, federal officials said.

Dominion Virginia Power hired the U.S. Department of Agriculture's wildlife services program, which deals with problem animals, to kill the large, dark birds.

"This was kind of a last resort," said Jennifer Cromwell, the program's assistant Virginia director. "We tried every nonlethal method that we could," such as scaring the birds with noisemakers. "When those methods were ineffective, this was the route that we had to take."

Hundreds of black vultures have frequented the landing for years. Black vultures are bolder than their red-headed relatives, the turkey vultures.

All the birds killed were black vultures, Cromwell said. The work was done, on and off, from mid-December to mid-February.

The birds were lured into a 30-foot-long, wire trap near the landing and shot in the head with pellet guns. Federal authorities say that is a humane means of death.

Irene-Eva Ries of Chesterfield County, a sociologist and bird-watcher, said the problem could be solved by things like parking farther away and chasing the birds more effectively.

"I don't know why death is at the top of everybody's list. I do know, because it's more convenient and it's easier and it's cheaper. . . . Because [the vultures] are not beautiful singing warblers, and people don't like their appearance, they are being doubly vilified and persecuted."

She said the public should have a bigger say in how to resolve the Dutch Gap vulture problem.

Dominion Virginia Power paid the USDA program $5,700 to kill the birds, said company spokesman Dan Genest.

The birds caused more than $10,000 in power-plant damage over the past year, and they caused health hazards by making railings and catwalks slippery with their waste, Genest said.

It's a mystery why vultures love the area along the landing. Some say they are attracted to trash left by anglers. Others suggest the highly social birds simply learned that Dutch Gap is the place to mingle.

In summer 2002, the USDA program killed 371 black vultures at the landing. Hundreds of other vultures eventually replaced them, even though workers tried to scare them away with noisemakers and other tactics.

Will a few hundred birds need to be killed every few years at Dutch Gap?

Cromwell said she isn't sure. Workers will try again to chase the birds with noisemakers. "We're hoping now that the population is reduced that it will be more effective."


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