Birds drop in Somerset County
A (live) European starling. Image via tamstuart.com.
by Jennifer Weiss
Franklin Township residents found dead birds by the hundreds in their yards and neighborhoods this weekend, the apparent result of a planned reduction of starlings by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Planned insofar as the department knew about it. Local residents, not so much.
“I was stunned by the sight,” one woman told the Star-Ledger. “I said, ‘Is this real? Am I hallucinating?’ It was nauseating and upsetting. There were some stuck on the car, and I wasn’t going to touch them, not even with gloves.”
The black birds dropped after eating some sort of poison — one that metabolizes inside them, posing no harm to other animals, according to the USDA.
Residents were apparently told they had to clean them off their yards themselves.
Leave a Comment