ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 17, 1997 TAG: 9702170060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: LEESBURG, VA. (AP)
Some Loudoun County residents are calling for federal reinforcements after unsuccessfully battling a growing horde of messy, smelly vultures.
The beseiged town of Leesburg has been using air horns, balloons, firecrackers and even light cannons in their six-year fight against nearly 1,000 naked-headed turkey and black vultures.
Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says it may have the solution. The plan: to set up a room-size trap, bait it with a dead deer or some other road kill, and wait for the birds to come.
The rest is simple, the USDA's Martin S. Lowney said. He'll put on a raincoat every so often, wade into the trap, grab each vulture and put it in a small cage. About a week and $8,000 later, he figures, he'll have all the annoying scavengers and will truck them 200 miles away.
``It's our last resort,'' Town Manager Steve Brown said. ``If it doesn't work, I don't know what we'll do. We've already done everything imaginable.''
Everything except harm the birds, which is illegal because the vultures are federally protected. Final approval of the relocation plan rests with the Town Council, which is set to vote later this month.
Homeowners are hoping to be rid of the smelly droppings on their patios and the road-kill leftovers that have become a bigger problem as the number of vultures has risen over the last few years.
Despite all kinds of scare tactics, the vultures have returned every year - and in greater numbers. Officials estimate that there are as many as 1,000 roosting in Leesburg, an increase from about 300 three years ago.
Ornithologists believe there is a connection between the increase in the vulture population and the growth of the county's deer population, which has more than doubled since 1988 and provides plenty of carcasses for the birds to pick at.
It's not just the droppings residents complain about. They aren't too keen on the way the birds look, either. They weigh about six pounds and appear more menacing then they really are, Lowney said, because of their six-foot wingspan.
Then there are the birds' habits. To cool themselves, for example, they urinate on their legs.
Lowney, state director for the USDA's animal damage control department, has high hopes for his trapping plan.
``I'll be putting on a raincoat to pick them up,'' he said, explaining that vultures tend to ``throw up on you when they get excited.''
The birds will be tagged and released in rural southern Virginia, he said, with the hope that they won't fly back to Leesburg.
``It's been done before in Florida and Texas, and it's been proven to work,'' Lowney said. In Orlando, federal officials moved about 700 vultures to Pensacola last year, and so far only three have returned.
But Jim Fraser, a professor at Virginia Tech who studies vultures, is skeptical. He says the vultures will be back.
``Birds in general are mobile, but vultures are even more mobile,'' Fraser said. ``Some vultures migrate to Central America and come back.''
LENGTH: Medium: 60 linesby CNB