STAUNTON, Va. (AP) — Federally protected birds are taking a bite out of area livestock, and farmers’ incomes, and there isn’t much anyone can do about it.
Technically, it isn’t legal to shoot at one even if it’s attacking you or a family member.
“They’re the worst predator we have, worse than coyotes,” said Charles Curry about the black vultures that harass, attack and even kill some of the 80 cattle and 20 mares on his Mount Solon farm.
Birthing seasons are particularly bad. Attracted to the afterbirth, the buzzards show up in droves and attack calves and foals in mid-birth. “They go after the eyes and that disables them, then they go after them when they’re out (of their mother),” Curry said. “They’ll kill the mother, too, if she doesn’t move away.”
Curry lost three foals and a mare this year, and has lost up to 11 calves in a year in the past.
Curry has lost about 20 animals since the scavengers began appearing at his farm in large numbers more than five years ago.
And he’s not the only one.
“There’s definitely been an increase in their numbers in recent years,” said Al Bourgeois of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. “This is not a new problem, but the problem has become a little worse.”
Farmers in Churchville, Stuarts Draft and Mount Crawford who raise cattle, goats and sheep also reported problems, especially during birthing seasons when it becomes a “race between us and the buzzards” to get to newborn animals, as one Churchville farmer described it.
It’s not just vultures either. Great Blue Herons treat some area fish hatcheries like loosely guarded cookie jars, stabbing their sharp beaks in for a treat at will.
“I watched one eat 12 trout about 7 to 8 inches long in just about 10 minutes,” said Junior Campbell, an employee at Casta Line Trout Farms near Craigsville. “They kill more than they eat (because) they damage them.”
The 3-foot-tall birds use their 1-foot-long beaks to spear into the water, leaving trout once destined for a private pond gashed and bleeding.
“You can’t sell ’em or stock ’em once they (have) been wounded like this,” said Campbell, holding a stunned and stunning 10-inch golden trout with a craterlike hole pierced through the scales just below the top dorsal fin.
“I had to get a dozen (injured fish) out (of the hatchery) one morning,” said Campbell, tossing the wounded trout into the woods. “They’re here year round. You can’t keep up with them.”
“I just want to be able to protect my property like any other farmer,” said Bryan Plemmons, owner of Casta Line Farms. “Even worse than the loss of fish is the risk of disease.”
Plemmons estimates he loses $10,000 to $20,000 a year worth of trout, and that he has lost tens of thousands of fish at his four hatcheries.
If a heron or other predatory bird brings a virus into his water, he stands to lose a lot more.
“A virus is almost impossible to get rid of without depopulating,” Plemmons said. “And that is enormously expensive.”
Neither the heron nor the vulture is endangered, but they are protected by the Migratory Birds Treaty Act of 1918.
“Technically, there is no accepted reason to kill a (protected) bird,” said Randy Dettmers of the United States Fish and Wildlife Services.
While it is possible to get federal permits to shoot the animals under special circumstances, to obtain one is too difficult, and the permits are too restrictive, area farmers said.
“One of the things they want you to do is enclose your hatchery,” Plemmons said. “We wouldn’t be able to afford it.”
Before permits are granted, farmers are asked to try nonlethal deterrents like putting nets up, installing fake owls to ward off birds, or employing noise-making machines made specifically for this purpose.
Not taking precautionary measures to keep wildlife away from a stocked hatchery and then shooting birds for showing up almost amounts to baiting the birds, said Dettmers, a wildlife biologist.
“If it is clear there is a problem, it’s not an issue to get a permit.” Dettmers said. “The permit process recognizes that the law is written in pretty stark terms.”
The Augusta County Farm Bureau passed a resolution in September to oppose the birds’ status as protected, but it would take an act of the United States Congress to amend the treaty act.
Members of Congress have proposed changing it in various ways over the nine decades since it was enacted, but those efforts have rarely met with success.
It was last amended in 1998 — to stiffen the penalties.
Violators can be punished by a fine of up to $1,500 and a maximum jail sentence of one year.
The law may seem extreme to those losing property, Dettmers conceded, but even black vultures play an important role in the environment.
“As scavengers, the (vultures) recycle nutrients through ecosystems and clear out dead and decaying material that would otherwise increase the chance for disease,” Dettmers said. “Black vultures certainly are more aggressive in terms of attacking small animals or something that is still alive or being born.
“Even us biologists wouldn’t say they are cute.”