Seagulls under death sentence

From: http://www.seattleinsider.com/news/2000/11/15/seagulls.html
Tuesday, November 14, 2000
ASSOCIATED PRESS and KIRO 7 EYEWITNESS NEWS

LACEY, Wash. -- A garbage dump long favored by seagulls has been closed, but
swarms of birds continue to hover and their droppings may soon become their
undoing.

Citing complaints from business operators and homeowners near the garbage
transfer station at the site of the old Thurston County dump, as well as a
lawsuit filed by a business park developer, officials have decided to begin
shooting the birds.

The landfill was closed June 1 and is being covered, and the transfer
station has three walls and a roof, but the seagulls won't go away, said
Scott Schimelfenig, the county's solid waste manager.

"They're a bird of pattern, and the birds have been coming in that area for
years," Schimelfenig said. "That's their pattern."

The county has had an Interior Department permit to shoot as many as 200
gulls for about three years but never exercised it, he added.

Transfer station workers and U.S. Agriculture Department agents will use
pellet guns, shotguns and fireworks to try to reduce the bird population and
the amount of droppings, Schimelfenig said.

County officials said they hoped the action would put an end to a $7.5
million lawsuit filed by Meridian Partnership, which said the dump had
lowered property values and driven away tenants and business at the
developer's 2,000-acre Meridian Campus.

Some employees in the business park said bird splats were so frequent they
kept umbrellas ready to use even on sunny days.

Cliff Drake
Seattle WA
ardea at uswest.net