Buzzard infestation. Residents in this small SC town have lived with it for years.
Swarms of big black buzzards are creating chaos in Great Falls.
They eat dead things; After all, they’re scavengers. And they’re common in the Carolinas.
Often they roost in large groups, sometimes by the hundreds, on solid, flat structures like Great Fall’s water towers or power lines.
In the evening or early morning, they gather in groups of about 30 and roost on local roofs. They eat shingles or peck mortar between bricks.
Town residents have gotten so fed up that they set off fireworks to scare the buzzards away.
Former town council member Charles Dixon recently told The Herald he used to spend all day shooing them off his home with a slingshot — before they finally stopped coming back.
It’s illegal to kill them.
Buzzards, a nickname for turkey vultures, are raptors. They’ve been bothering this community in Chester County, S.C. — about 30 miles south of Charlotte — for years. The issue has come up several times over the last decade in town council meetings, Dixon said.
Kay Hopkins, who works in Great Falls as a hairdresser, brought the issue up earlier this month. After watching the birds swarm her neighbors’ homes for the past five years, the last straw was when she saw birds harassing her neighbor’s dogs.
“I asked them: ‘can someone help?’” Hopkins said. “These people shouldn’t have to live like that.”
But the council can’t intervene.
Buzzards are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty, one of America’s oldest wildlife protection laws. Clyde Sorensen, an entomology professor at North Carolina State University, said that means you can’t trap, kill or harass them.
However, according to the S.C. Dept. of Natural Resource’s website, residents can obtain a permit to kill or relocate them.
As we approach fall, the buzzards migrate south, Sorensen said.
And they’re certainly a nuisance. They like to be entertained and boredom leads to damaging results, he said.
Buzzards in the neighborhood
On a recent Thursday evening near dusk, dozens of buzzards sat atop an electrical grid.
“Vultures roosting on electrical transmission structures can produce accumulations of feces and vomit that in turn lead to power outages and communication disruptions,” the USDA states on its website.
“The associated accumulation of feces can be unsightly and odorous,” according to the S.C. Dept. of Natural Resources.
On a recent hazy Saturday morning around 8 o’clock, dozens of restless buzzards on Brookline Street flew rooftop-to-rooftop along the road with nearly a dozen houses. On the residential mill-town street, half-a-dozen buzzards had knocked over a filled garbage can and were feasting on trash.
Dogs barked at the birds.
On nearby Hampton Street, almost a dozen buzzards sat atop a fence. One flew into the abyss of kudzu-covered trees.
Half a dozen more seemingly playful buzzards gathered down a hill. A few yards away, several dozen suddenly flew out of a burnt-out house. One perched on the house’s chimney. Two flew overhead with a loud whoosh and landed on a roof.
One of the residents said the buzzards picked a rubber seam off his Mustang. A large discarded sand toy lay in the grass, trashed by buzzards.
Residents hang owl decoys to scare the buzzards away. One discarded owl decoy was cracked in several places and in a nearby trash pile.
Another resident plans to hang the carcass of a dead buzzard near her house. Dixon said he has ordered a carcass for one of his neighbors after watching her struggle with the birds.
What can be done?
To discourage buzzards from roosting, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service states on its website that you can use a fresh carcass, a taxidermic preparation, or an artificial likeness.
“Research ... has demonstrated that proper installation of a vulture effigy almost always causes abandonment of the roost within 3 to 5 days,” the USDA service states on its website.
Town residents say the buzzards make the town look bad.
They come in droves, usually around 7 or 8 a.m. and then back at night, Hopkins said.
The birds are probably just looking for a solid place to rest, Sorensen said. Their feet aren’t made for gripping, so they like flat, secure surfaces, he said.
“What draws them to an area is an elevated structure that makes a good, suitable roost that gives them protection from predators and things like that,” he said.
And they’re not particularly attracted by smells of sewage or other signs of filth, he said. In other words, a flock of buzzards is not necessarily a bad sign.
They usually don’t carry bacteria or disease, he said.
“They’re not malicious, they’re not aggressive,” Sorensen said. “They have a value ecologically.”
They have a job to do, and they need to be regarded as “very beneficial.” Turkey vultures and other scavengers are needed to break down decaying wildlife, he said.
If you need help, a federal agency might be able to relocate the birds, or in some certain cases, you might be able to get a permit to get rid of them. That permission must come from the United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services.
However, the USDA will allow someone to obtain a permit only if the birds are harming their livestock. Sorensen says Great Falls will probably just have to continue living with the buzzards.
This story was originally published August 24, 2020 at 7:02 AM.
