T1B

PORTLAND, Ore. - The population of starlings and other birds that roost on the Interstate Bridge is growing every year and the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is upping its counterattack.
The problem is that the bird droppings are doing damage to the bridge's paint by eating away at it.

On Friday, ODOT crews plan to activate four propane-fired orchard cannons, which will be placed at the four corners of the lift span. The cannons will automatically launch blasts of air about every 15 seconds during a 2 1/2-hour stretch in the late afternoon and early evening hours for the next month.

ODOT has tried this before, but it is using more fire power now because more and more birds keep coming back. They also plan to play recorded sounds of predatory birds and birds in distress as another deterrent.

Two things --

Let's see, it didn't work the first time. Maybe they could have consulted people in the agricultural industries...you know, people who deal with starlings on a daily basis. Like for instance, my buddy the vinyard manager...who would have been quick to tell them that starlings(and other breeds of dicky-birds) get used to a propane cannon in...oh, about 6 hours, after which it has little æffect.


And, I'm trying to come up with a number that's reasonable for the over/under on the number of days before a propane cannon blast freaks some little old lasy out, causing her to swerve on the narrow, 3-lane Interstae Bridge, resulting in massive casualties and some cars getting bumped off the bridge, into the Creek.


As an aside, if you put appropriate projectiles in an agricultural propane cannon, they can make a pretty entertaining toy...OR SO I'VE HEARD.

These are the same people that gave us the exploding whale.

http://home.comcast.net/~sthacks/new_wh ... ale-hi.mov

'Round these U&L parts, we usually save the endless resets of the exploding whale for the holiday season...not sure why, but it's become a holiday tradition...or it is on KATU, anyway.


Nowadays, that would never happen. Last time a big dead thing was stinking up the beach, they pretty much left it there, and the tweekers went out in the wee-hours, and chopped it to bits...I guess figuring the carcass-chunks were worth a fortune in China, or something.

Fuckin tweekers.

Cats could keep the bird population down and cars could keep the cat population from getting out of hand

From the title, I thought this was going to be a Gogi thread, btw

Several years ago, some of the city folks finally got tired of the public complaing about the huge flocks of starlings atop many of the city buildings..they tried for several years to get rid of them..they finally ended up with a combination of traps and birdshot...gd things were plastering everything below.

Out here in farm country, when my old man was alive, him and one of his cronies whose son had a blueberry farm, would ride around all day in an old open top jeep, blasting the fuck out of the starlings. They would just drive up the field and they would scatter.

They started making plywood cut outs of the jeep and 2 guys in it, and moved them around each day. They both had more fun doing that...2 80 something guys blasting starlings all day. RIP both..

I saw the video on K2 this morning. The camera had such epic close up shots of piles of bird shit, and a GREATTT narration about the piles of bird shit ON THE BRIDGE, NO LESS from the talking head and the bitter goverment worker. Then to top it off, a fucking pigeon shit on my windshield as I was coming across the Interstate bridge this afternoon. goddamn downtown Vantucky is nice...