On Thu, 7 Mar 1996, K. McKillip wrote:

>
> Hi everyone,
> This was sent to me from a friend. Does anyone know anything else about it?
> Kim McKillip
> conure at u.washington.edu
>
> BOSTON (AP) -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to kill about 4,000
> gulls by dropping poisoned bread cubes into their nests, so that endangered
> birds can nest and raise young on an island off Cape Cod.
>
> The service said it hopes that in four years there will be a gull-free area for
> plovers, terns and other birds on South Monomoy Island.

I know a little about it. In fact I've done some gull control in
Massachusetts, myself. All I did was discourage them from nesting on a
tern island by showing up every day and being visible - no killing of the
adult gulls. Gulls are much warier of humans than are terns, when it
comes to selecting nesting areas.

But gulls, whose populations exploded in the 70s and 80s, have taken over
almost all the nesting habitat around Cape Cod. Other birds like Common
and (endangered) Roseate Terns are limited to a few islands that are kept
gull free by human efforts. The gulls don't physically hurt the terns,
they just displace them.

In previous trials of the poisoning program, the poison was mixed with
margarine, spread on bread, and laid next to nests in a gull colony.
When the gulls return, they eat the bread and die quickly. I believe the
poison breaks down almost immediately in the gull's system, meaning that
it is unlikely to spread further in the food chain. And, in any case,
the dead gulls are removed from the colony the same day.

I know it's unpleasant to think about, but there are hundreds of thousands
of gulls, if not millions, in New England, and the entire North American
population of Roseate Terns is probably under 5000. Those 5000 are at
high risk since it is concentrated in just two or three major colonies.

Incidentally, the gull population boom is probably due mostly to the
gulls taking advantage of human refuse as an easy food source.

I fully support the effort to get the nesting gulls off Monomoy Island,
and if the people there have decided that poison is the way to do it, I
trust their judgement. I'm sure it was not a decision made lightly.

Chris Hill
Everett, WA
cehill at u.washington.edu