More than 60 baby seagulls found dead, injured in South Loop ‘bird chaos’

06/18/2018, 07:25pm

About 40 dead and 25 injured baby seagulls were found and rescued from South Jefferson Street on Sunday in what seems to be the result of attacks between seagulls.

The Chicago Birds Collision Monitors, which works under the Chicago Audubon Society, received a phone call through its hotline about 2 p.m. When volunteer Chava Sonnier arrived at the scene on her way home, expecting to pick up just one or a few birds, she was “totally shocked.”

“I’ve personally never seen anything of this large a scale before,” she said. “It was truly bird chaos.”

Sonnier rescued about 20 injured seagulls from a sea of eggs, birds and feathers. It was “heartbreaking,” she said, to see surviving birds curled up near their dead siblings or trying to remain with family members.

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A Woodpecker Has Been Attacking Car Mirrors in Snellville, Georgia

“Son of a biscuit,” one victim responded.

BY CARA GIAIMO 

OCTOBER 25, 2017

The town of Snellville, Georgia, has lately been suffering a small and specific crime wave: someone has been shattering the side mirrors of people’s cars.

After about two dozen people reported damage, police sent extra patrols out to the neighborhood. But the real culprit was soon revealed: it was a hyped-up pileated woodpecker, attacking mirrors because he thought his reflections were rival birds.

In one of the greatest news reports this author has been fortunate enough to come across, Channel 2 Action News’s Steve Gehlbach got out on the scene and talked to a couple of victims.

One of them, John Hancock, had blamed the dings all over his wife’s car on neighborhood kids with BB guns. He seemed charmed by the real culprit, calling him “a beautiful bird.”

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Pet dog pecked to death by seagull in 'horrific' garden attack

Cornwall Council tells distraught owner there is nothing they can do about the unruly seagulls which are a protected species

By Agency

12:29PM BST 15 Jul 2015

A beloved pet dog has been pecked to death in a "horrific attack" by a ferocious seagull in Cornwall.

The eight-year-old Yorkshire terrier, called Roo, was attacked in the garden of his owner's home at St Columb Minor near Newquay.

The tiny dog received a wound to his head and brain damage during the attack by the Herring gulls, which swooped down from the roof and pecked at the tiny dog's head. They are believed to have been protecting their nest.

He was later put down after a vet decided he could not survive his wounds.

Roo's owner Emily Vincent now fears for the safety of her four children and her two other dogs, Maltese Terriers Millie and Louis.

Ms Vincent said: "Jace [my son] was with Roo in the garden and then all of a sudden Jace started screaming that Roo is bleeding.

"I ran into the kitchen and saw Roo lying on his side and there was blood everywhere. Roo had managed to run indoors and then collapsed. Blood was coming out of his head.

"It was like a murder scene. I couldn't get any sense out of Jace initially but then he kept saying the big bird has got sharp teeth.

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Owl attacks hawk at Vermont LL Bean store display

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — The grand opening of an L.L. Bean store in Vermont has ruffled some feathers, with an owl attacking a hawk in a shopping mall display.

Officials say a European eagle owl attacked a Harris's hawk Friday in Burlington's Town Center Mall.

The Burlington Free Press reports witnesses said the owl squeezed the hawk in its claws for several minutes, causing the hawk to shriek.

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Saskatchewan village torn over what to do about great horned owl attacking dogs

Bre Mcadam, Ckom, The Canadian Press

Tue, 1 Apr 2014 16:15:00 CST

ABERDEEN, Sask. - People in a village northeast of Saskatoon are at odds over what to do about an owl that is believed to have attacked at least three small dogs.

A great horned owl has been living in a spruce tree in the community of Aberdeen.

Miranda Hingston says the bird swooped at her chihuahua, Rosco, last month even though she was standing right next to her pet.

Rosco survived, but Hingston says her friend's small dog was killed by the bird of prey and residents say a third canine was attacked as well.

She wants the owl gone, even it means destroying it.

But resident Janet Weser says people just need to keep a closer eye on their pets and the bird should be left alone.

"Let it hunt. It will move on as soon as the ice and snow melts off the fields. It will be after the mice," Weser said.

"I heard a shriek and then the owl grabbed a hold of him, dragged him about four feet and was going back and forth," Hingston recalled of the attack.

"I actually had to kick the owl to get him to let go."

She said her dog is doing well despite having a few talon marks on his chest and back.

"I know a lot of people around town are saying, 'Oh, it should just be left alone' ... but at the same time, what about our animals? There's a lot of small animals in town."

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Has Amazon underestimated our feathered friends? Birds filmed attacking drone

Ah, the animal kingdom. Blood, sweat and tears are spilled in the name of territory – and when it comes to airspace it’s no different.

In what could be a bit of an annoyance for the logistics department at Amazon, a radio-controlled pilotless drone filmed itself being attacked by birds.

YouTube user Buddhanz1 uploaded the footage, telling viewers: ‘I must have annoyed a group of birds, they teamed up & started dive bombing my radio controlled phantom drone from all directions.

‘I think they knocked the battery connector loose as I lost control & had a rough landing.’

Read on

Real-Life 'Birds' Remake in Belgium

OSTEND, Belgium—This North Sea resort welcomes millions of visitors a year to its wide sandy beaches and seafood restaurants. But as peak season ends, mayors along the coast are planning crisis talks to tackle a scourge that nearly spoiled the summer of 2012: marauding seagulls.

In a real-life Hitchcock remake, the birds have been snatching food from tourists, attacking people, spreading garbage, and sowing conflict among business owners, scientists and local officials over who is responsible.

Some say European Union regulations need to change; others say property development along the coast is responsible for a problem that didn't explode until recently.

The lesser black-backed gull and the herring gull are protected species in the EU. There are 6,500 breeding pairs in the whole of Flanders, according to Eric Stienen, an expert in colony birds at the Flemish Institute for Nature and Forests. Around 6,000 breed and live on the harbor in Zeebrugge, a container port where they first settled in the 1980s and have remained relatively undisturbed by humans and predators. Most others are concentrated west of the port, in Ostend, he said.

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