Vultures find free meat on a suburban street CHRIS CHURCHILL Updated 10:10 am, Thursday, March 6, 2014
Guilderland, N.Y.
They perch like solemn gargoyles on tree limbs and rooftops. They soar and glide with style. And they eat the meat that's left for them, morning after morning.
These are the vultures of Willey Street, a flock that's found a comfortable home in the Westmere section of Guilderland. The birds hang out on the quiet suburban street for one reason: Patricia House feeds them.
"The only thing they want is dead, raw meat," she said.
So that's what House places in her yard in the early morning, just beyond her back porch. The self-described animal lover believes she's helping the vultures survive a difficult winter when food might otherwise be scarce.
But neighbors are weary of living in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. The birds, famously macabre, are always lurking.
"They're creepy," said Mark Healey, whose parents live across from House.
"Our kids are afraid to walk past her house," said Brian Schneider, who lives a few homes away. "They run by to get to the school bus stop."
The ghoul factor is bad enough. But neighbors are really tired of the poop that rains down on their houses, cars and yards from creatures that seem perfectly content in this corner of suburbia.
"I counted 32 of them this morning," Healey said Tuesday. "More and more birds are coming."
With a wingspan of 5 to 6 feet, black and turkey vultures are elegant enough to be mistaken for bald eagles — from a distance, when they're soaring high above. But to most eyes, their beauty disappears with closer inspection. They have hideous heads, black or red, featherless and wrinkled, with beaks designed to pluck flesh from bone.
The Atlas of Breeding Birds in New York State describes turkey vultures thusly: "Repulsive to look at, offensive in habits, clumsy and awkward on the ground, but the personification of grace and skill in the air."
Vultures rarely attack, and they are not considered a threat to children or small animals. They prefer that somebody else do the dirty work.
I walked past two vultures on my way into House's living room. They didn't seem bothered.
Inside, House assured me she's not a kook, hoarder or crazy cat lady. She was once, in fact, the town's animal control officer. She retired from the Guilderland Police Department job in 2000.
"I'm not a fanatic," she said. "But I do care about animals."
House says she never meant to attract the flock. The whole mess started, she says, when she began feeding a pair of injured vultures.
Soon, the daily buffet began attracting an ever-larger crowd.
True to their reputation, vultures do enjoy a free meal.
"I want everybody to know that I'm not trying to create a problem," House said. "I tried to solve a problem by helping these animals survive the winter."
House believes the vultures should be considered little more than a minor neighborhood annoyance, akin to barking dogs or screaming children. Nevertheless, House says she's sympathetic to concerns about the fecal mess and will stop the feeding when the weather warms.
Problem solved?
Maybe not.
Neighbors say they've heard similar promises before, but House never stops the feasts. Complaints to the town, they add, never bring action.
Guilderland Supervisor Ken Runion and Police Chief Carol Lawlor each claimed there's little the town can do, because wildlife issues fall under the state's jurisdiction. A spokesman for the Department of Environmental Conservation said there's no law against feeding the birds.
Also, vultures are migratory birds (when they're not being fed) and are thus protected by federal law. Neighbors, no matter how frustrated, are prohibited from harming them.
So the vultures of Willey Street continue on, the size of the flock depending on the time of day. I easily spotted about a dozen during my midday visits, but neighbors say there are many more in the morning, when they're fed.
They're even becoming an attraction, of sorts, on the dead-end street. While I visited with House, a van driver stopped to take pictures. That happens often, she said.
Across the street, Healey has photos of his own, showing vultures waiting like sentinels on the pitch of a neighbor's roof.
"They know when it's feeding time," he said.
Despite the frustration, Willey Street seems to have remained refreshingly cordial.
House said she has "lovely neighbors." They, in turn, expressed anger at the town's inaction, but mostly described House as kindhearted. They just wish she'd stop the free meals.
I didn't interview the vultures, but I assume they feel otherwise.
Gee. it looks like mayor McC and his dem team take from the financially struggling homeowners.
And DV is shaking his pom poms.
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
I thought this was about the copservative party when I first read the headline.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
I thought this was about the copservative party when I first read the headline.
LOL - Saltine American made a real funny!
We are advised NOT to judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics. Funny how that works.
My friend lives one street over on Gipp. The birds are frightening and destructive. They perched on the side of her above ground pool and ripped the sides beyond repair. They ruined all her lawn furniture. The kids can't have balls because the birds swoop down and pop them all (which I guess is actually amusing to watch but becomes costly and annoying after the third, fourth, etc attempt). I've been to her house when the birds are swarming, it gives you the feeling that the end is near. When they land on the roof it sounds like a horse.
Here is the thing- in nature they have their place. That is to eat the dead animals that lay dead in the fields and roads, etc. Just like the beetles and the worms do. OK? When you start providing free meals to wild animals then you are throwing nature out of whack. You are not letting them do their job in the context of THE ENVIRONMENT" or what normally uneducated and stupid progressives call it. Stupid progressives tend to think that these are "pets" or that they in some way need the intervention of man to exist. They do fine on eating rotted meat off of dead deer carcasses and such. This is what they are designed to eat, and there should be plenty of that. Once again you have ignorance and some misguided bullschit fool trying to "tame" them because they enjoy the spectacle of them. These birds like to fly very high using the warm currents of air (global warming maybe? LOL) that lift them high up so they can get a great view. Then they use an ability that most bird do not have the ability to use- smell. They can smell dead animals from great distance. They don't need suburban well-wishers trying to "help."
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
vultures looking for free meat on suburban streets --- must have been a bunch of nayboobs
George Amedore & Christian Klueg for NYS Senate 2016 Pete Vroman for State Assembly 2016[/size][/color]
"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground." Lyndon Baines Johnson
vultures looking for free meat on suburban streets --- must have been a bunch of nayboobs
To me, it sounds like Dems preying on new homeowners in the city
We are advised NOT to judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics. Funny how that works.
vultures looking for free meat on suburban streets --- must have been a bunch of nayboobs
Come on DV, you know darn well that the vultures are the city/county/plex dems swooping down to steal more money from the financially struggling people of Schenectady in order to fee their multibillionaire downtown political cronies.
You, DV, CANNOT DENY that FACT
Really in your job of "Christian outreach" don't you see the people of the city, how they struggling financially, often just one tax bill away from the dems taking their houses away from them! When you counsel them, do you tell them to give to the dems til it hurts, even if they wind up homeless? Just as long as the dems can give to their rich cronies in order to get their generous kickback political donations to keep them in power to take more from the taxpayers and continue the endless cycle.
What do you think, DV. of the EVIDENCE of another, EVEN MORE MASSIVE drop in the city's tax base (evidence being the equalization rate). What do you think of it? What's the matter, cat got your tongue, you can't answer this question? Or your buddy dems have your hands and mouth tied?
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
My friend lives one street over on Gipp. The birds are frightening and destructive. They perched on the side of her above ground pool and ripped the sides beyond repair. They ruined all her lawn furniture. The kids can't have balls because the birds swoop down and pop them all (which I guess is actually amusing to watch but becomes costly and annoying after the third, fourth, etc attempt). I've been to her house when the birds are swarming, it gives you the feeling that the end is near. When they land on the roof it sounds like a horse.
that's just disgusting!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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