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Thursday, January 05, 2006

Vultural Literacy



' They've tried to scare the vultures away with rubber chickens, hung upside down and painted black.

That only moved the dozens of carcass-eating birds on the Texas State University campus to another building.

The birds don't hurt anyone, which is why the university hasn't gone beyond the fake poultry stage to get rid of them. It seems their only crime is being homely.

"They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder," said university spokesman Mark Hendricks. "Well, this beholder says those are pretty ugly birds."

A few years back, Hendricks said, he was having the type of day where everything that could go wrong did, when he looked out the window on the eighth floor of the main administration building and saw a vulture staring back at him, wings spread as it hung on a draft. "Had that glass not been there, I'm sure I would have smelled his breath," Hendricks said. "I looked out there and said, 'You know something? I wish it was time to go home.' "


The vultures — specifically turkey and black vultures — used to roost on electric wires around campus and in the trees near Aquarena Center, an environmental attraction close to the university. But a few years ago, the birds moved closer to the main campus, settling on Strahan Coliseum and the J.C. Kellam Administration Building, where they startle people and have left excrement on the balcony of the 11th-floor room where campus officials often host parties.

David Huffman, a biology professor at the university who has studied birds for more than 30 years, said the vultures probably like the buildings' flat surfaces and lack of natural predators.

"It's just kind of a weird thing to be in a president's cabinet meeting, and there's buzzards on the ledge watching you," said T. Cay Rowe, interim vice president for university advancement.

Graduate student David Cohen says he likes how the birds have become part of the campus scene.

"We expect to see these things now, flying around the J.C. Kellam building," Cohen said. "And that's part of what I like. I like having things I can point out and say, 'OK, this is something that's sort of different about Texas State.' "

Huffman said spikes on the ledges would make the beady-eyed creatures uncomfortable. But since there haven't been many complaints, the university doesn't plan to spend the money to install them.

"I actually think when they're flying, it's awfully pretty," Rowe said. "They're so graceful. And, let's face it, they perform a necessary function in society." '