PORT ANGELES — Whether you praise or condemn the squawking gangs of sea gulls in Port Angeles — and the white-streaks they create by their droppings — more of the birds would be creating a ruckus if not for an abatement practice that suffocates chicks in their shells.
A federal sea gull management program has prevented 950 chicks from being hatched atop downtown buildings since 2004 by spraying the birds’ eggs with corn oil, a U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services district supervisor said last week.
Port Angeles is the only city on the North Olympic Peninsula taking part in the Integrated Pest Management Program, which is intended to reduce the sea gull population and limit the amount of sea gull feces coating sidewalks and streets and splattered on cars, District Supervisor Matt Cleland said.
Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Teresa Verraes said Friday she would immediately find out more about enacting the program in Port Townsend’s richly Victorian downtown historical district, a shoreline-hugging magnet for tourists as well as sea gulls.
Sea gull droppings are highly acidic, damaging roof surfaces and, if not quickly wiped off, ruining car paint, said Jaye Moore, director of the Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Center in Sequim.
The egg management, or “addling,” program is made available to Port Angeles downtown building owners through the Port Angeles Downtown Association, which manages downtown parking and levies a regular assessment on its 190 members.
Twice a year around May, during nesting season, a Department of Agriculture wildlife specialist armed with a backpack sprayer climbs onto the roofs of downtown businesses that request the service and sprays the oil on any eggs he can find — usually two to three for every nest, Cleland said.
The oil coats the eggshell, cutting oxygen to the embryo or chick and killing it within a couple of hours, he said.
The wildlife specialist wears a hard hat for protection from attacking sea gulls that are none too happy about the intrusion, Cleland said.
The operation is conducted under a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permit.
The program cost the association about $800 this year, he said.
The roofs of an average of 19 buildings a year in downtown Port Angeles have had a total of 950 eggs addled since 2004, Cleland said.
“That’s [950] birds that did not join the population,” he said.
“That’s how we look at it.”
It also at least temporarily prevents sea gulls from rebuilding, in the same spot, nests that can reach 6 feet in diameter and heights of 2 feet.
The program addresses only a small portion of the problem, Cleland said.
The adults eventually nest elsewhere, though it might not be a roof, he said.
But has the program done any noticeable good in Port Angeles, a city that borders a sea gull-inviting harbor and the Strait of Juan de Fuca?
The birds’ feces create unsightly white splatter that coats downtown sidewalks and undermines the city’s efforts to beautify the business area and attract tourists, Ed Bedford, owner of Northwest Sodaworks, said at a Port Angeles Downtown Association meeting last week.
“I really think it’s a serious issue,” said Bedford, also board vice president of the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce.
“I think it’s getting worse, not better.”
The sea gull droppings also have compromised the association’s “Our Community At Work: Painting Downtown” project, a storefront spruce-up and painting program, Executive Director Barb Frederick said.
“It’s very disheartening to look at a building you’ve spent so much time to look nice with white splotches all over it,” she said.
But downtown association board member Richard Stephens said he believes the program “has made a real difference” in the amount of bird droppings on downtown sidewalks.
“It’s not as bad, but it still is a problem,” he added.
Evan Brown, co-owner of Brown’s Outdoor, who has had eggs abated once on his roof, said the program appears to have reduced the number of sea gulls downtown.
“I can remember it being far worse than this,” he said Saturday.
Brown’s roof was eggless this year during nesting season.
“It just a matter of getting them deterred so they don’t nest on the buildings anymore,” he said.
The only way to gauge the impact of the program would be to conduct bird counts, Cleland said.
Ken Gruver, assistant director of the Washington-Alaska Wildlife Services Program, said it is “very rare” that the program receives complaints from citizens concerned with animal cruelty.
Moore is “a rehabber. I want to save everything,” she said Friday.
But she said she understands why there would be an oiling program that destroys sea gull eggs.
She said the center is raising two sea gull chicks that someone had placed in a box and abandoned.
“It’s a constant cleaning,” she said of caring for the birds.
“What goes in comes out twofold, and they are messy.”
She said she understands, too, that business owners must protect their investments.
“I just think it’s sad that they are taking these measures, but something has to be done. They have to do something to make it more people friendly, unfortunately.”
Verraes said she and a friend were recently having lunch on the deck of a restaurant in Port Townsend when a sea gull “just nailed” the friend with feces that landed on her friend’s hair and clothes.
“It fouls up some fun, for sure,” Verraes said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.