A plot worthy of Poe: School uses bird 'corpse' to scare vultures

NORTH CANAAN — It’s spring, and amid all the other season changes to look forward to, staff and students at North Canaan Elementary School are expecting to be rid of a flock of black vultures.

The big birds are migratory and should have left by now; about half of them have. Maybe the stubborn cold has kept the rest of them close to the school roof’s delightful warmth, which has been an obvious attraction. That and the shelter of the evergreens that surround the building.

Fearing they might take up permanent residence in the apparently idyllic spot, the school is taking action to attempt to chase them away. But the approach they’ve chosen will unfortunately add another level of creepiness to the saga.

Principal Rosemary Keilty reported last week the flock, which once numbered more than 70 birds, is down to about 30. But it is still a nuisance. They spend their days either perched en masse in a favorite tree, on the school roof near chimneys and air handlers, or perched along the crossbars of playground swingsets (the latter are hosed down regularly). The school had planned to install bird spikes along the bars, but were advised they would be accessible to, and therefore a hazard to, students.

The vultures are messy and annoying but harmless. They are close cousins of the turkey vultures that are most common in this area. Both species are scavengers, seeking out roadkill and easy garbage pickings. School staff has been careful to keep the Dumpster closed, but it has not seemed to matter.

They are also a protected species. After the vultures arrived late last year, and it was evident they planned to hang out, the school was advised there is virtually nothing that can be done to be rid of them that would not be potentially harmful or illegal.

Hoping to break what has become a stalemate, the school sought further advice from the Audubon Center in Sharon. The bird experts there suggested a decoy. The vultures might be “convincedâ€� to leave, Audubon said, if they were to see an apparently deceased member of their species  perched, with a death grip, on a branch of a favorite tree.

“A vulture won’t roost in a tree where there is one of their own, dead,� Keilty said.

The plan has been set in motion — but not too quickly.

“We want to get the word out about what we are doing so people don’t think it’s a real dead bird and get upset.�

The elementary school enlisted the help of its pest-control company, but they were unable to find a “model� of a black vulture.

“The closest they could come was a Canada goose. They’ve ordered one, and they will modify it to look like a vulture,� Keilty said.

The birds, for their part, seem indifferent to the distress  of their human neighbors, and to the air of the macabre that they are creating (which will be intensified, presumably, once the avian ‘corpse’ is added to the scene). They have settled in with all the humans, and seem unfazed by all the effort being made to get rid of them.

They are large, sinister-looking birds that fail to endear themselves. Keilty said that as she drives to school each day, she rounds the building knowing that dozens of beady eyes will be upon her.

“They are lined up, staring at me. Every single morning. It’s like they are waiting for me.�

At a recent faculty meeting, Sharon Audubon was asked to bring a black vulture.

“We were hoping that when the teachers saw one up close, and we heard about the good they do for the environment, as nature’s recyclers, they would become more familiar with them and it would lessen anxieties,� Keilty said.

Unfortunately, the meeting was held in the cafeteria, which was prepared for the Spanish festival with crepe paper decorations hanging from the ceiling.

“When they took the vulture out of the box, and it saw the decorations fluttering from the ceiling, it was badly startled. It was flapping that huge wingspan. Teachers were running out of the room. It wasn’t very successful.�

So, the decoy “corpse� will be installed very soon.