Vultures: Bella Vista’s least liked residents
Roughly 60 or 70 black vultures were resting in a tree on the edge of Lake Ann when a loud pop and a louder boom startled them and sent them flying in all directions, eventually soaring higher to look for a quieter spot to perch.
Bella Vista police officer Terry Dickey said that earlier that same day there were a few hundred birds in the same spot. There seem to be a lot of black vultures and turkey vultures lately, he said, and they have caused some property damage in the area.
“I was out here honking my horn at them this morning,” he said.
Dickey said the firework-like bird bangers, shot out of a bright orange pistol, can scare them off — though, eventually, the birds return.
Joe Neal, a retired Forest Service ornithologist who has authored and co-authored multiple books on birds and is currently associated with the Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society, said that vultures are a fact of life in Northwest Arkansas.
“They’re as much a part of the Ozarks as the mountains and the rivers,” he said. “They got here a long time before people did.”
The turkey vulture and black vulture populations in Northwest Arkansas, he said, are on the rise, in large part, because more humans are moving into the area. This isn’t unique to Bella Vista, he said, though it is more visible here because good vulture nesting spaces — like the bluffs alongside U.S. Highway 71 — are in plain sight.
While a growing human population often leads to habitat destruction, in the case of vultures and other scavengers an increase in humans and their infrastructure is an improved habitat. More roads and cars on them mean more roadkill, he said, and other animals — like raccoons and opossums — that benefit from a more urban environment also eventually die and improve the food supply for scavengers. Deer hit by cars or injured by hunters, he said, can also help feed these birds.
“All of these are things that put a lot more meat into the environment,” he said. “For the people who don’t like vultures, they’ve just got to look at themselves, because we’re the ones changing the environment and they’ve taken advantage.”
It’s worth noting, he said, that comments about vultures killing livestock, like calves, are unlikely to be accurate. More often, he said, the culprits will be wild dogs, but vultures may take the blame simply because they’re visibly consuming the animal later.
Vultures, he said, are one of the oldest avian lifeforms and have changed very little over the past few million years. They have relatively weak feet with small talons, he said, suitable for grasping and perching but less useful for killing prey. Their relatively soft beaks, he said, are great for tearing up soft, partially-rotten tissue, but not for hunting.
“The point is they evolved this technique millions of years ago to deal with the death of animals in the landscape … and that has not changed in 2018,” he said.
Neal speculated that vultures tearing up things like seat cushions may simply be confusing the soft texture of them with that of a rotting carcass.
Capt. Tim Cook said the birds are federally protected, though the department does have a permit to kill a certain number of birds, which are then set up as a warning to other vultures — though it’s important to note this is only used once other options have proved ineffective.
“They are a surprisingly very, very tough bird,” he said.
The department tries to work to frighten vultures off, he said, to help prevent damage to residents’ property. Despite a significant amount of effort, he said, some parts of the city have an overabundance of the scavengers. After several attempts, he said, the department may opt to kill a bird and hang it up to suggest the area isn’t safe for birds and frighten away other vultures.
Cook said he’s seen these birds severely damage property, including decks, roofs, boats and hot tub covers.
A resident who has issues with these birds, he said, can try to scare them off with noise. If there are continued issues, he said, someone can contact the police department for help and may be able to obtain a noise permit to use particularly loud tools, like the bird bangers, to scare off these birds.
Neal said he believes the department has the right idea — killing the birds, he said, should not be the first order of business.
Vultures don’t like to be bothered, he said, so annoying them and making noise may buy some relief. Additionally, he said, covering up boats, cars and other things the birds might tear up can keep people’s stuff safe.
Neal said he doesn’t believe killing and hanging up a bird is likely to do much — a bird may see it and perch somewhere else, but it isn’t likely to be a long-term deterrent.
“They’re short term because you can’t kill enough vultures to make a difference,” he said. “The very same ecological forces that cause the population to build up here is still functioning.”
There’s not a particularly good, objective way to measure carrion availability, he said, but as the population increases, there will be more roadkill in the area, among other things — and Northwest Arkansas, he said, is growing rapidly.
More people means more food, which means more birds, he explained, so one way or another, people are going to have to learn to live with them.
“This planet belongs to all of us and we’re going to have to share it with them somehow,” Neal said.