Giulianos Forum

Shock and caw: Pesky starlings still overwhelm





SALT LAKE CITY – The next time the sky darkens with a flock of noisy unwelcome starlings, blame Shakespeare — or, better yet, a few of his strangest fans.

Had the Bard not mentioned the starling in the third scene of "Henry IV," arguably the most hated bird in North America might never have arrived. In the early 1890s, about 100 European starlings were released in New York City's Central Park by a group dedicated to bringing to America every bird ever mentioned by Shakespeare.

Today, it's more like Hitchcock.

Some 200 million shiny black European starlings crowd North America, from the cool climes of Alaska to the balmy reaches of Mexico's Baja peninsula. The enormous flocks endanger air travel, mob cattle operations, chase off native songbirds, roost on city blocks, leaving behind corrosive, foul-smelling droppings and hundreds of millions of dollars of damage each year.

And getting rid of them is near impossible.

Last year U.S. government agents poisoned, shot and trapped 1.7 million starlings, more than any other nuisance species, according to new figures, only to see them roaring back again.

"It's sort of like bailing the ocean with a thimble," said Richard Dolbeer, a retired Wildlife Services researcher in Sandusky, Ohio who spent years trying to figure out ways to keep starlings — which he calls "flying bullets" — and other birds from causing problems at airports. Federal aviation officials say they have caused $4 million in damage since 1990.

After the starlings' introduction, they quickly expanded west, taking advantage of vast tracts of forested land opening up to agriculture and human development, Dolbeer said. By the 1950s, starlings had reached California and nearly all parts in-between. Today, it's one of the most common birds in the U.S.

Their prodigious presence is no mystery. Starlings breed like crazy, eat almost anything, are highly mobile and operate in overwhelming numbers. They're also expert at nesting in protected nooks and making an intimidating statement as they swirl in vast clouds called "murmurations."

"They're great survivors and quite the biological machine," said Greg Butcher, director of bird conservation at the National Audubon Society.

They're also responsible for the most deadly bird strikes in aviation: a 1960 civilian crash in Boston that killed 62 and a 1996 military cargo plane crash that killed 34 in the Netherlands. Since then, there have been close calls, including a Boeing 747 that ran into a flock in Rome last fall. No one was killed but the badly damaged plane had a rough landing.

Those kinds of scenarios are why wildlife biologist Mike Smith has been tweaking a series of traps used at Salt Lake City International Airport, where there have been 19 reported starling strikes since 1990. The traps use dog food to attract a starling or two. Hundreds more soon follow, driven by their innate desire to flock with each other. He once caught 800 in a single day.

The most popular lethal tactic is a poison called DRC-1339, which is often sprinkled on french fries, a favorite starlings snack. Within a day or two, starlings keel over from organ failure.

No other state poisoned more starlings last year than Washington. Starlings there caused $9 million in damages to agricultural operations over five years. Nationwide, starlings cause $800 million in damage to agricultural operations each year, according to a Cornell University estimate.

At one feed lot, some 200,000 starlings gathered each day, lining fence tops, wires, water troughs and even perching on top of cows. They've learned to steal the most nutritious morsels from the cattle troughs and pose an ever-present threat of moving disease from one ranch to another, said Roger Woodruff, director of Wildlife Services in Washington.

Nearly 650,000 starlings were poisoned last year in the state, an all-time record, he said.

When killing's not an option, agents often turn to harassment campaigns.

In downtown Indianapolis, flocks as large as 40,000 show up around dusk in the winter to hang out, find food and keep warm. They quickly wear out their welcome with their noise and their mess. Crews are deployed nearly every night to scare them off with lasers, pyrotechnic explosions and noise devices with names like "screamers" and "bangers."

Like other urban areas, they've had some success shooing them out of downtown and onto undeveloped land, said Judy Loven, director of Wildlife Services in Indiana, but it's likely going to be an ongoing battle.

"They're pretty much wise to our ways and pass that information along," said Jeff Homan, a wildlife researcher in Bismarck, N.D., who's part of a team focusing on starlings and blackbirds.

It's unlikely those who engineered the starlings' release in Central Park — including its leader, New York drug manufacturer named Eugene Schieffelin — could have fully imagined the consequences of their experiment, said author Kim Todd, who wrote about the introduction in her 2001 book "Tinkering With Eden: A Natural History of Exotic Species in America."

"It's sad but true that we often only see a creature's beauty when it is out-of-reach or rare," Todd said in an e-mail. "I can't imagine that Schieffelin, who appreciated starlings on the page and in small groups, would have the same affection for them in their enormous, pesky flocks."

Attack on Obama riles Beck's advertisers

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer David Bauder, Ap Television Writer – Mon Aug 24, 10:18 am ET
NEW YORK – Glenn Beck returns to Fox News Channel on Monday after a vacation with fewer companies willing to advertise on his show than when he left, part of the fallout from calling President Barack Obama a racist.

A total of 33 Fox advertisers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., CVS Caremark, Clorox and Sprint, directed that their commercials not air on Beck's show, according to the companies and ColorofChange.org, a group that promotes political action among blacks and launched a campaign to get advertisers to abandon him. That's more than a dozen more than were identified a week ago.

While it's unclear what effect, if any, this will ultimately have on Fox and Beck, it is already making advertisers skittish about hawking their wares within the most opinionated cable TV shows.

The Clorox Co., a former Beck advertiser, now says that "we do not want to be associated with inflammatory speech used by either liberal or conservative talk show hosts." The maker of bleach and household cleaners said in a statement that it has decided not to advertise on political talk shows.

The shows present a dilemma for advertisers, who usually like a "safe" environment for their messages. The Olbermanns, Hannitys, O'Reillys, Maddows and Becks of the TV world are more likely to say something that will anger a viewer, who might take it out on sponsors.

They also host the most-watched programs on their networks.

"This is a good illustration of that conundrum," said Rich Hallabran, spokesman for UPS Stores, which he said has temporarily halted buying ads on Fox News Channel as a whole.

Beck can bring the eyeballs. With the health care debate raising political temperatures, his show had its biggest week ever right before his vacation, averaging 2.4 million viewers each day, according to Nielsen Media Research.

He was actually on another Fox show July 28 when he referred to Obama as a racist with "a deep-seated hatred for white people." The network immediately distanced itself from Beck's statement, but Beck didn't. He used his radio show the next day to explain why he believed that. He would not comment for this article, spokesman Matthew Hiltzik said.

ColorofChange.org quickly targeted companies whose ads had appeared during Beck's show, telling them what he had said and seeking a commitment to drop him. The goal is to make Beck a liability, said James Rucker, the organization's executive director.

"They have a toxic asset," Rucker said. "They can either clean it up or get rid of it."

It's not immediately clear how many of the companies actually knew they were advertising on Beck's show. Sometimes commercial time is chosen for a specific show, but often it is bought on a rotation basis, meaning the network sprinkles the ads throughout the day on its own schedule. Sometimes ads appear by mistake; Best Buy said it bought commercial time for earlier in the day, and one of its ads unexpectedly appeared in Beck's show.

One company, CVS Caremark, said it advertises on Fox but hadn't said anything about Beck. Now it has told its advertising agency to inform Fox that it wanted no commercials on Beck.

"We support vigorous debate, especially around policy issues that affect millions of Americans, but we expect it to be informed, inclusive and respectful," said spokeswoman Carolyn Castel.

Besides the unpredictability of the opinionated cable hosts, the rapid pace of today's wired world complicates decisions on where to place ads, said Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokeswoman for Sprint. She said she was surprised at how fast the Beck issue spread across social media outlets and how quickly advertiser names were attached to it.

UPS' Hallabran said the decision to pull commercials "should not be interpreted as we are permanently withdrawing our advertising from Fox." He said the company wants to reach viewers with a wide spectrum of opinions.

Except for UPS Stores, there's no evidence that any advertisers who say they don't want to be on Beck's show are leaving Fox. Network spokeswoman Irena Briganti said the companies have simply requested the ads be moved elsewhere and that Fox hasn't lost any revenue.

She wouldn't say whether Fox was benefiting from any anti-anti-Beck backlash, with companies looking to support him. Some Beck supporters have urged fans to express their displeasure at companies for abandoning their man.

Beck supporters have suggested that retaliation might have something to do with ColorofChange.org's campaign. One of the group's founders, Van Jones, now works in the Obama administration and has been criticized by Beck. But Rucker said Jones has nothing to do with ColorofChange.org now and didn't even know about the campaign before it started.

Beck's strong ratings — even at 5 p.m. EDT he often outdraws whatever CNN and MSNBC show in prime-time — make it unlikely Beck is going anywhere even as the list of advertisers avoiding him approaches three dozen.

But it could mean advertising time becomes cheaper on his show than such a large audience would normally command. Some of his show's advertisers last week included a male enhancement pill, a law firm looking to sue on behalf of asbestos victims, a company selling medical supplies to diabetics and a water filter company.

Rucker said ColorofChange.org has contacted about 60 companies regarding Beck, and is heartened by the response.

"It's causing a certain conversation around Beck, which I think is important," he said.

___

On the Net:

http://www.colorofchange.org

http://www.foxnews.com

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — David Bauder can be reached at dbauder"at"ap.org

JAIL BIGS WERE 'BROWN' NOSERS* RAP DIVA FOXY PAMPERED AT RIKERS
 
By JANON FISHER, REUVEN BLAU and BRAD HAMILTON


 Glammer Slammer: Foxy Brown In XXL mag photos taken at Rikers Island.

It's a jailhouse crock.

City prison officials acted like an entourage of fawning valets for rapper Foxy Brown when she was locked up on Rikers Island, hanging out in her cell, bringing meals and makeup, giving her unlimited TV and phone use, and toting her bags when she was released last April.

Brown, who did nine months for a parole violation after she punched and kicked two nail-salon manicurists in 2006, wore Gucci sneakers and a Fendi scarf -- and when they got dirty, new ones were brought to her.

The diva's jailers also set up an interview and photo shoot with a magazine, which ran a feature on the raunchy rapper that helped hype her new album.

So say outraged Department of Correction insiders, who told The Post that Brown's coddling was yet another example of an unruly agency flouting its own regulations and security for the privileged few.

"It's just out of control," one official said.

Said another, "There's a total lack of leadership at the top."

Correction chief Peter Curcio and the prison's top rabbi, Leib Glanz, resigned last week after The Post exposed a lavish bar mitzvah that Glanz arranged for an inmate's son at a lower-Manhattan lockup, along with other perks showered on select prisoners.

The city Department of Investigation and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office are probing Glanz and his boss, Imam Umar Abdul-Jalil, in the matter.

Abdul-Jalil played a key role in Brown's star treatment, the sources said, going to bat for the hip-hop hottie when she wanted something special.

"Umar would call the warden, and the warden at the time would comply," one insider said.

Two other ministers who report to Abdul-Jalil -- the Rev. Kevin Green and Imam Aisha Muhammad -- helped arrange Brown's good-time treatment, despite the rapper's bad behavior as an inmate at Rikers' Rose M. Singer Center, the insiders said. Brown is Christian.

"They were in her cell day and night," one department supervisor said. "Whatever she wanted, Sister Aisha would talk to warden [Michelle] Mack and get it."