Vultures causing headaches in Zanesville
ZANESVILLE – As black vultures expand their range in Ohio, they are proving to be a nuisance in Zanesville.
Laine Snyder, the executive director of the Zanesville Museum of Art, has seen the problems they cause firsthand.
“We have had a terrible problem with them for the last five years,” she said. “I'm not talking about a few, it is a huge group, as many as 40 at one time roosting on the roof of the museum.”
The roosting vultures damaged the roof, and, as they grew more comfortable, they began to get closer to staff and visitors, lounging on the overhang above the entrance to the museum and unnerving patrons, some of whom left rather than walk below the large birds, Snyder said.
Eventually, Snyder said, the damage to the roof necessitated replacement to the tune of $180,000. But first, the birds had to go.
The museum tried scaring them away, with water cannons and hoses, to little effect.
“We had to go through a whole process of remediation before we could finally get permission to permanently remediate them, we had to get a license to kill a bird, and use the kill as an effigy,” Snyder said.
Effigies, hanging a dead bird, is very effective way of keeping them from a specific area.
Applying for the permit was a lengthy process, Snyder said, and came with a number of conditions. The permit allows the museum to kill up to six black vultures.
The city was recently awarded a permit to kill up to 10 of the birds by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, as they otherwise protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. It comes with a lengthy list of conditions, 16 in all, including “to minimize the lethal take of migratory birds, you are required to continually apply non-lethal methods of harassment in conjunction with lethal control.”
Zanesville Mayor Don Mason said people in the neighborhood of the former Mckinley Elementary School have been complaining about the ever-increasing number of vultures since the spring. The birds cause property damage, and seem to be attracted to rubber roofs and things like windshield wiper blades, often damaging them.
A contractor hired by the city shot three birds on Tuesday.
Mason said he hopes the birds hung in effigy will scare the others away. He said fake effigies are not as effective as the actual birds, as they don't have the same smell.
So far, the museum has killed one bird.
“We would like to keep it that way,” Snyder said, calling having to kill the birds horrible, but the birds are persistent and smart. They have learned what car the person working to remove the bird drives, and then fly away when it pulls into the parking lot, Snyder said.
The birds have been hanging around the museum for years, Snyder said, not necessarily roosting at the museum, but around. They used to leave in October and come back in the spring, but recently they have started to spend the entire year in the area, she said.
There are two types of vulture in Ohio, the red-headed turkey vulture, and the black headed black vulture. According to the Cornel Lab of Ornithology, both vultures primarily feed on carrion, although black vultures have been known to kill small mammals like skunks, and newly born livestock like sheep and calves. Neither the city's nor the art museum's permit applies to turkey vultures.