Neighborhood Overrun by Puking, Pooping Vultures

Thanks to one neighbor who apparently won't stop feeding them
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Aug 18, 2019 5:30 PM CDT
Neighborhood Overrun by Puking, Pooping Vultures
In this 2017 photo from a US Fish and Wildlife Service motion-activated camera, a vulture comes in for a landing at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico.   (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via AP)

A New York couple's luxurious vacation house in Florida has been taken over by dozens of black vultures that are vomiting and defecating everywhere. The Palm Beach Post reports the Casimano family can't even visit the $702,000 home they purchased earlier this year in the Ibis Golf and Country Club. Siobhan Casimano described the smell as "like a thousand rotting corpses," reports the AP. The vultures have destroyed screen enclosures and have overtaken the pool and barbecue. The few times the family has visited, they've had to park their car in the garage to avoid the birds pecking at them. A neighbor, Cheryl Katz, tells the Post she's got it even worse because she lives next-door to a person who is feeding the vultures and other wildlife. In May, she said vultures tore through her pool enclosure and couldn't figure out how to get out.

"Imagine 20 vultures trapped, biting each other—and they can bite through bones," she said. "They would bang against my windows running away from a bird that was attacking them. Blood was everywhere. It was a vile, vicious, traumatic event. And it was Memorial Day, so no company I called would come out to help me." Katz says she has seen her neighbor give the vultures bags of dog food and even a roasted chicken. People have suggested scaring them off with fireworks or balloons; one expert suggested killing a vulture, having it stuffed, and hanging it in a prominent place because vultures avoid their own dead. But Katz said she found out from the US Wildlife Service that it's hard to get a federal permit to kill the protected bird. Katz even tried putting out four fake owls with moving heads and blinking lights. "The vultures chewed the owls apart," she said. "They ripped the heads off."

(More vulture stories.)

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