Posted on 01/28/2008 8:35:23 AM PST by Dysart
FORT WORTH -- Kujo perched on a tree branch in downtown's Burnett Plaza, warily watching for prey.
No grackles or starlings were in sight.
Instead, a man raised his arm.
Kujo, a 2-year-old Harris's hawk, quickly flew low and fast through the chilly morning air to reach the outstretched arm of Roger Crandall, his handler.
Rewarded with pieces of mouse meat, he knew that next time, his bounty could be bigger.
Kujo and his working mate, Blackjack, could be the newest tools in the city's efforts to drive out grackles -- long known as "downtown's feathered menace."
Recent changes in federal law, prompted by local falconers and officials, allow special permits to be issued so the hawks' handlers can be paid for eradicating "nuisance" birds. A contract between the falconers, who have demonstrated the hawks' work locally for free, and Downtown Fort Worth Inc. is being discussed.
"The damage they do and mess they make are unacceptable to the public," said Andy Taft, president of Downtown Fort Worth Inc. "And our job is to make the public comfortable in downtown."
Through the years, the group and the city have spent thousands of dollars using everything from spotlights to grape fog to pyrotechnics to chase grackles away.
"This phase," Taft said, "is now 'No Grackle Left Behind.'"
Bring the prey down
Crandall and Jeff Cattoor -- area falconers and partners in Nighthawk Bird Control -- have brought their hawks downtown before.
Usually they begin late at night, after making sure that at least one of their hawks is hungry. Then they release them in areas that are saturated with grackles.
"They plow into the tree, grab the first grackle or starling ... and bring the prey down," Crandall said.
"The others fly away."
The handlers give the hawks a little bit of the animal they killed -- enough to whet their appetite.
Then they go again, into different trees where grackles watch and often fly away in fear.
Kujo and Blackjack have bells and transmitters attached to them to make it easier to find them after a kill.
Until recently, the work Crandall and Cattoor do with the hawks has been on a volunteer basis, because federal law prevented them from being paid for using predatory birds to hunt other birds.
But officials with Downtown Fort Worth Inc., U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, and Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief went to bat for changing the law and allowing special permits for these falconers. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now has new regulations in place.
Cattoor and Crandall recently received a special federal permit -- good for three years -- to allow them to be paid for their bird eradication work.
Already, they've traveled to the Panhandle to help a refinery remove a roost that has settled along the entire operation. And they hope to focus on downtown Fort Worth for much of the rest of this roosting season, which runs through April.
They say they can run grackles out of downtown -- and keep them from coming back.
"Hallelujah," Moncrief said. "I will jump up and click my boots when that happens."
"Our city is so beautiful and has so much to offer ... without the company of grackles or what grackles are known to leave behind," he said.
"Since my first alternative of using a 12-gauge was not acceptable, I'm delighted that Nighthawk will fill the bill."
Problem birds
Grackles -- loud, messy and typically unafraid of people -- have been a problem downtown and throughout the city and Metroplex for years, becoming a public nuisance by squawking and relieving themselves on sidewalks, vehicles and passers-by. The city, Downtown Fort Worth Inc. and local businesses spend time and money cleaning sidewalks and shooing the birds away.
The grackles generally go downtown during the cooler months, seeking safety from predators and an ample supply of food and water. In warmer weather, they head to fields to dine on grains and other crops.
Some say they aren't all that bad. They do eat mice and insects such as crickets and roaches, which can be problems themselves.
But many say the mess they make outweighs any positive points. And while various methods have been used to drive the grackles away through the years, the birds keep coming back.
"I have no problem with this practice, especially for grackles and other nuisance black birds," said Greg Keiran,a local birder and member of the Fort Worth Audubon Society. "Killing cowbirds is even a good thing since they are harmful to the songbirds that they parasitize."Some say the hawk effort won't drive the grackles away.
At least not for long.
"Paying to have a temporary hawk kill a few birds is not a long-term solution," said Gail Morris, president of the Fort Worth Audubon Society.
"I don't think the falconers will have much luck with that approach.
"It would just be a temporary fix."
'100 percent'
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials say they have issued four of the special permits -- one to Nighthawk, the others to companies in Texas and California.
In addition to this permit, falconers still need a hunting license from state wildlife agencies, said Nicholas Throckmorton, a spokesman with the federal agency.
"For grackles, it's not so much hunting as it is hazing," Throckmorton said. "Grackles aren't a hunted species, but falconers can now be very useful to make life very uncomfortable for them."
Cattoor said using the hawks to consistently scare grackles could someday leave a grackle-free downtown.
Eventually, the grackles will believe that there's a full-time threat to them downtown and will seek a safer location.
Cattoor said it might take using the hawks downtown for a full grackle season -- generally from late September through March -- to scare the pesky black birds off.
"They eventually will move off. The roosts will relocate," Cattoor said. "With continuous pressure on them, it is 100 percent a solution."
A Video at the link entitled, ‘No Grackle Left Behind’.
Images not to scale.
Your results may vary.
No wagering, please.
I still think that the Turkey Vulture should be made the state bird of New Jersey. They feast on all the dead deer around here, and are representative of the rapacious politicians eating on the dying corpse that is the NJ taxpayer.
Some(a few thousand) of the flock has made to SW Arlington (my neck of the woods) and they darken the shopping strip in the evenings. They are fascinating to watch and listen to—from a distance. But they do leave a nasty, potentially dangerous mess, and as you mentioned, drive away more desirable birds.
They should be rounded up and deported back yonder to Mexico, whence they came.
Bird seed salted with lead shot.
Some people complained.
They're rats with wings! They should be exterminated. I hate 'em. But ... I understand that they are protected because they are migratory. Yeah right .... they migrate from intersection to intersection. That's about the extent of it.
We can't even deport the vast majority of illegal Mexicans in our country; deporting their wretched birds would be even harder. We're just going to have to shoot them - the birds, of course.
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