Donna
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« on: 22-Nov-09, 07:33:16 AM » |
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MADISON — It’s an otherwise normal afternoon on a quiet north Madison street: Children play in yards, dogs bark, a few cars drive down the house-lined streets.
You might not notice anything is amiss, if you didn’t look up.
But 35 vultures sat perched in the trees Thursday in the area around the Metz family’s Winding Road home, and the Amplos’ house behind it, on Wheatstone Road.
“That’s nothing,” Rachel Metz said.
Linda Amplo said she counted 75 of the large birds around her home one day this week; seven of them were on her house.
There’s something ominous about the birds, she said.
“I feel like the Addams Family,” she said. “I kept thinking that they found a deer and they’d (eventually) leave. But this has gone on for three weeks and if anything, they are getting stronger in number.”
State Department of Environmental Protection officials say the birds are harmless, that they feed only on dead animals, but Amplo’s son, Christian, 12, held his small shih tzu a little tighter when the birds began to circle above his driveway Thursday.
Amplo, who said she is a wildlife enthusiast who would never want to hurt an animal, has started carrying a baseball bat when she walks her dog in the morning, in case she encounters an aggressive vulture.
There are also wafts of a pungent odor, and portions of the woods and roadway coated in the birds’ white feces.
Metz said while that is annoying, the fact that these birds land in her yard, in close proximity to her small children, cat, and small dog, is downright scary.
So, Metz called the state DEP, Madison police and animal control, as well as the town’s Audubon Shop.
“Everyone’s scratching their heads. They don’t know why (the birds) are doing this, but no one can offer any help,” Metz said.
Worse, she said, is that the birds are protected, so her idea of tossing stones at them to scare them away is prohibited by law.
Julie Victoria, a wildlife biologist at DEP, said the birds are protected under the Migratory Birds Treaty, and people are not permitted to “harass or harm” them in any way. Metz was told if she harms or harasses the birds, she could face a fine or jail time.
“It seems as though I don’t have many rights on my own property, that I pay taxes on,” she said.
Metz said a police officer with DEP experience told her the birds were black vultures, which are uncommon to the area.
Jerry Connolly, owner of the Audubon Shop on the Boston Post Road, viewed a picture of the birds, and said he believed them to be immature turkey vultures. Turkey vultures are common in the area, and have black heads until they mature, when their heads turn red. Although Metz and Amplo both said the birds seemed aggressive toward their pets, Victoria said it would be extremely rare for the birds to harm a pet or person.
“They’re not dangerous at all,” said Victoria, who called the birds “the garbage collectors of the wild. They don’t eat anything that’s alive; usually they just eat things that smell very badly.”
Still, the birds have left Metz feeling ill at ease. She said she feels imprisoned in her home because she not only fears the birds may be stalking her pets, but she’s also afraid because the birds are known to heave projectile vomit if they feel threatened.
“There’s feces in the yard, and I can only imagine what’s in their feces,” she said.
Metz is waiting for answers — so far, sounding car horns and a horn purchased at a marine shop, and yelling at the birds have done little to discourage them. Every day, they return to the area at about 2 p.m., and they stay all night, Metz said.
“It’s real spooky, a lot of cars have been stopping,” said Amplo’s husband, Anthony Amplo.
Although the scene on Wheatstone or Winding roads might seem like something out of a Hitchcock film, Connolly stressed the birds pose no danger.
“There’s absolutely nothing to worry about, other than that they’re not super handsome to look at,” he said.
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