Issue date: 3/4/10 Section: Perspective

Media Credit: Nicolas Floyd

Anyone who has ever aimed a bottle rocket at a cantankerous goose at a Fourth of July get-together can tell you that birds aren't particularly fond of firecrackers.

Anyone who has been on or near Eastern's Richmond campus at sunset this week can now tell you the same.

As students well know, Eastern's Facilities Services has launched an effort (literally) to rid campus of the abundance of birds roosting in its trees.

While the idea of firing obnoxious noisemakers at a few dozen birds just trying to make a living may seem excessive, there's much more to this scenario than might appear.

The birds Eastern is dealing with are mostly European Starlings, a non-native species and nationwide nuisance. The birds are problematic for a number of reasons, most notably for the immense size of their flocks, aggressive behavior towards other species and rabid consumption of crops in the Great Plains.

A simple YouTube search shows the unbelievable number of Starlings that can sweep across the horizon and paint the skies black. And while we're not necessarily worried about a million Starlings descending on campus like some sort of biblical plague, the ones we have are trouble enough.

According to UK's College of Agriculture and its Extension program, roosts of Starlings in developed areas (like, say, Eastern's campus) are problematic for a number of reasons. The most obvious problems are the ones students can see, hear and smell - filth, noise and odor.

Walk through the Ravine or beside the Keen Johnson Building at dusk and your senses are in for a real treat. The birds chirp incessantly for hours, and let's just say the sandy-looking substance at your feet isn't someone's souvenir beach sand: It's an assortment of seeds that used to be in berries and fruit…before the birds digested it, anyway.

Unsightly as it may be, the birds' accumulated waste is the cause of the more serious problems: the potential spread of disease and potential physical damage to buildings and structures.

The…"droppings" are acidic, which makes them corrosive. Think of them as a really disgusting form of acid rain or something - one that eats through concrete, brick and most other building materials slowly but surely.

Oh, and your car is probably covered in it, by the way.

That's bad news, but the worse news is that, while rare, the birdie byproduct has the potential to spread some serious diseases. More than 25 diseases, including psittacosis, salmonellosis and histoplasmosis, are known to be spread by the birds and what they leave behind.

We can't claim to be pathologists, but that sounds pretty bad.

There's no need to hole up indoors or start wearing flu masks around Campus Beautiful (again, these diseases are rare), but it's pretty apparent that public health is in Eastern's best interest here.

Finally, Starlings live several years and return to roosts from years gone by. Left to their own devices, the Starlings will nest on campus and return to campus next year, and the year after, and the year after and so on. So while it might seem dramatic or needlessly costly to pay the facilities crew to aim and fire exploding money at 3 oz. blackbirds, it's a necessary nuisance for Eastern and the City of Richmond.

In this case, it's better to be safe than sorry.

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