The knowledgeable "grand" Dennis sed:

> I'm sure the only reasonable way to control starlings would be to wipe out
> entire roosts at one time. This has actually been done with big
> blackbird/starling roosts in the southeast, where they imperiled crops.

In France, also, it has been done.
The Starling is considered a pest by farmers in France, because in the winter
they can damage crops. In Brittany (west part of France), they used to roost
by millions (yes, millions) in a single place, usually a grove. This huge
number of birds of course can cause problems to crops (amazingly enough, the
Starling is considered very useful by farmers in Baltic countries and Russia,
where they breed, after having spent the winter in the west part of France).

Some experiments of killing the birds in their roosts have been made a few
times in the 80's (I don't know for the 90's). These experiments are criticized
by many environmentalists, not because of killing the starlings, but because
of the method used:
Usually a plane flies over the roost and pour an oily liquid containing deadly
poison. Because of the oil, the poison stays on the birds, and of course they
try to get rid of this oil by preening themselves. In doing so, they ingest
the poison, and that's it !
The problem is that all this poison goes into the alimentary chain after that.
Of course, decompostion of dead starlings cause the poison to spread in
adjacents creeks, then causing trouble for fish, ...
Some carrion feeding predators will of course eat the dead starling and poison
themselves.
Even, Tits have been observed many times eating the dead starlings' brains,
contaminating themselves and contaminating accipiters and carrion eaters
in turn...
Some people measured in a small creek that the amount of dead starling
biomass (correct english ?) was equivalent of that of two cows. Far too much
for a little creek !

Are there any impact studies that have been done in the wiped out
southeast roosts ?

I might try to get more scientific information about what the story I described
next time I will go to France, if anyone is interested.

--
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A bird in the bush is better than two in the hand.

Serge Le Huitouze School of Computing Science
email: serge at cs.sfu.ca Simon Fraser University
tel: (604) 291-5423 Burnaby, British Columbia
fax: (604) 291-3045 V5A 1S6 Canada