About 40 baby seagulls found dead in South Loop
Officials think it’s an unusual case of bird- on- bird violence
About 40 baby seagulls were found dead and 25 injured birdswere rescued from South Jefferson Street on Sunday in what seems to be the result of attacks between seagulls.
The Chicago Birds Collision Monitors, which works under the Chicago Audubon Society, received a call to its hotline about 2 p. m. When volunteer Chava Sonnier arrived at the scene expecting to pick up just one or a few birds, she was “totally shocked.”
“I’ve personally never seen anything of this large a scale before,” she said. “It was truly bird chaos.”
Sonnier rescued about 20 injured seagulls from a sea of eggs, birds and feathers. It was “heartbreaking,” she said, to see surviving birds curled up near their dead siblings or trying to remain with family members.
While many of the seagulls died on impact after falling off the building, others were run over by cars or died of dehydration and exhaustion.
The birds were initially suspected to have been thrown off the rooftop, but U. S. Fish and Wildlife concluded upon examining the scene that it is likely adult birds are attacking other birds’ babies and nests.
While the behavior is not uncommon, Chicago field supervisor Louise Clemency said it was unusual “in such large numbers and all at once.”
“It’s something we haven’t seen frequently,” said Annette Prince, director of the Chicago Birds Collision Monitors. “We don’t know if this is a situation about the way the building is constructed, what the weather is like, if there’s too many of them. . . . We seldom see thatmany birds all coming down at one time.”
The surviving birds are being cared for at the Willow brook Wildlife Center.