Seagulls feading in landfill may be harmful

[Donna]

COCOA — So many gulls forsake fishing for free-but-foul lunches that last week's international birding festival featured field trips to the dump, as well as the beach.

Gulls gobble up garbage there, warm up from the rotting trash and thrive beyond what nature could otherwise support.

"The dump is great because you see so many in a compact area," Woody Bracey, 73, of the Bahamas said during a gull-watching tour of Brevard County's main landfill west of Cocoa. "It really helps to hone one's ID skills. Trying to sort one from another is a challenge."

Bracey was among the birders who paid $30 each to bear the stench and marvel at countless gulls that scavenge the county's landfill off Adamson Road each winter.

But while birders delight in the bounty, biologists are just beginning to explore some downsides to luring so many of these raucous birds to our trash:

# Gulls and other birds can pick up, ingest and become reservoirs for human-derived pathogens from landfill trash. They airmail them long distances, to beaches and other recreational waters. Some studies suggest they also might spread antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

# Gulls bully other less plentiful species such as terns out of roosting and nesting areas, forcing them to become rooftop nuisances. They also eat their eggs.

# Too much crowding around garbage increases risk of disease among the birds themselves.

"It's like a lot of things. When you're exposed to salmonella or even botulism, quite often it kills the birds," said Jim Rodgers, avian research leader for Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Gulls and other seabirds also often get blamed for elevated bacteria levels in water at Cocoa Beach, Jetty Park and inside Sebastian Inlet in Indian River County.
Gull explosion

The 50 bird species that winter only in coastal habitats in North America have increased by about 20 percent since 1968, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. The large increases in laughing, Heermann's and western gulls, northern gannet and common eider contributed to the overall trend.