300 vultures spew corrosive vomit, poop on border agents’ Texas radio tower, feds say
Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” is nothing compared to what U.S. Customs and Border Protection workers are enduring at an outpost near the Mexico border.
Roughly 300 vultures are roosting on a radio tower that federal agents operate in Kingsville, Texas, “nesting on the tower structure on the railings, catwalks, supports, and on rails and conduit throughout,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials said in a plea for contractors to submit “vulture deterrence system” ideas.
And the plague of vultures is extremely messy, according to Quartz, the outlet that first reported on officials’ request for “vulture deterrence” proposals. The request was issued Thursday.
“They will often defecate and vomit from their roost onto buildings below that house employees and equipment,” a CBP spokesperson said of the birds’ six-year conquest of the tower, according to Quartz. “There are anecdotes about birds dropping prey from a height of 300 feet, creating a terrifying and dangerous situation for those concerned.”
Responses to federal officials’ plea are due Jan. 30.
Kingsville, where the 320-foot radio tower is situated, is in southern Texas about 45 miles southwest of Corpus Christi.
“Droppings mixed with urine are on all of these surfaces and throughout the interior of the tower where workers are in contact with it, as well as on areas below,” the request said. “Since the presence of birds attract more birds this rural tower will be a frequent and constant target for vultures.”
So how exactly does CBP hope to solve the problem?
Officials said in the request for information that a “netting solution must be attached to the top of the structure, then follow straight down the angle beams in each section of the structure, follow the contour of the angle beams to the legs of the structure, then all the way to the ground.”
But before putting up a net, it sounds like CBP will have to do some clean-up.
“Installation of netting solution will be started after cleaning, rust remediation, and repainting of tower has been completed,” the request said.
Quartz cites a U.S. Department of Agriculture fact sheet saying that vultures “regurgitate a reeking and corrosive vomit,” which Quartz reports “kills bacteria on the birds’ legs, but also eats away at the metal in radio towers, reducing the life of the structure and making it unsafe for the maintenance workers who climb it.”
CBP hopes to put up the netting in August “to have the system in place before the natural heavy vulture roosting period during the fall months,” officials wrote in the request.
This congregation of predatory birds isn’t the first to turn a tower into a home: USDA researchers wrote in a 2002 paper that “communications towers provide attractive roost sites for … vultures” — a problem that has been mitigated in Florida by hanging “vulture carcasses or taxidermic effigies from towers to disperse vulture roosts.”
This story was originally published January 10, 2020 at 12:05 PM with the headline "300 vultures spew corrosive vomit, poop on border agents’ Texas radio tower, feds say."
