THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 7, 1994 TAG: 9410060227
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAWSON MILLS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
You can't duck this one even though, as problems go, it's for the birds.
Ducks and geese may be fine feathered friends but a flock of them can sure play hob with a residential neighborhood. Duck ``doo,'' like other bird droppings only more abundant, is bad enough but goose droppings can put small dogs to shame.
Residents of Goldeneye Court in Brookside Condominiums, off Baker Road, found out the hard way recently. The Muscovy ducks that normally live there, so domesticated they breed year-round, were joined by an exceptionally large number of wild mallards this summer. And in early September, some ``turkey'' in a mysterious van dropped off 24 full-grown domestic white snow geese, giving the court the ambience of a barnyard.
Droppings were in evidence everywhere, crushed into a pattern of stains marring the parking lot and in their natural state on walkways, patios, grills, lawn furniture, and every other outdoor item on ground level.
Feathers began to fly as residents who resented the birds' messy presence began to square off with those who fed and ministered to them. A shouting match resulted between the bird-boosters and the anti-avian activists.
Shirley Dimino, one of the anti-bird people, claims the pro-bird folks began to personalize their little friends. ``They had names for them,'' she recalled. ``Names like Faith, Hope, and Charity, and - I think - one of them was named Dude.''
Ann Harrall, manager of the Brookside Condominium Association, was forced to step in and mediate the dispute. She sought the advice and aid of city and state officials, but to no avail. ``We called Animal Control and Fish and Wildlife, but they were no help,'' she said. ``We got no results.''
Eugene Ruffin, supervisor of the Virginia Beach Animal Control Bureau, confirmed that, unless birds are in traffic, sick or injured, they don't pick them up. The policy, he explained, comes from the police chief.
Ruffin added that it is a violation to allow domestic birds (permitted only in agriculturally zoned areas) to run at large (but first one must identify the owner) and that migratory birds are federally protected. Birds, it seems, are the subject of more bureaucratic regulations than Frank Perdue's chickens, but none of that helped the residents of Goldeneye Court.
Several residents, frustrated by what they perceived as a ``fowl'' situation going from bad to worse, began making calls themselves. They fared no better, however, with governmental agencies.
Finally, pro-duck resident Barbara Constantino found a local volunteer group willing to help. Although more accustomed to rescuing injured ducks rather than the people affected by them, the group used its loosely-knit network of contacts and arrived at a solution.
A Portsmouth farm agreed to take all but four of the geese, and Southside Turf, which is under contract with the condominiums to maintain the grounds, was more than happy to transport them there last week.
The four remaining geese will be removed today along with a few Muscovys and taken to Lake Smith, where a homeowner plans to care for them.
The remainder of the evacuation will be left to the birds themselves.
``We'll keep the Muscovys at about a dozen by continuing to remove nests,'' Harrall said.``The mallards are wild and seasonal, and come and go. We expect them to go soon. Last year, because of the drought, we had problems with dead ducks, with them dying here. This year, right now, we have too many.''
Harrall said that a contractor has been hired to ``scoop and haul'' the droppings away and pressure wash the parking areas, walkways and other effected areas.
``He does a lot of work with lighthouses,'' she said, ``so he specializes in that sort of `material.' ''
The removal couldn't have come soon enough for Grace Agrios, who suffers from allergies and a persistent viral infection that won't go away. Her doctor has told her to stay indoors, in her second-floor condo, because of conditions outside her building.
``I won't blame it on any one thing,'' she said, pointing to dust clouds billowing from a construction site across the body of water outside her building. ``But these droppings and feathers certainly don't help.''
The removal of the geese, coupled with the annual migration of the mallards and stabilization of the Muscovy population, should permit peace, however, to return to Goldeneye Court. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by DAWSON MILLS
Someone in a mysterious van dropped off 24 full-grown domestic snow
geese at Brookside Condominiums - joining a host of other Muscovy
ducks and wild mallards that give Goldeneye Court the ambience of a
barnyard.
by CNB