From: viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson)
Subject: Gull poisoning reply
Summary: This is April's reply, as promised
Keywords: gulls, poison, A.S.
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 07:52:05 GMT

        This is a reply from my girlfriend, who worked at Manomet Bird
Observatory during the Summer of 1991.  E-mail replies to me should
have the name "April" in the first line -- I'll know to let her respond.
------------------- BEGIN APRIL'S MESSAGE ------------------------------
>From: tara@socrates.umd.edu (Tara McDermott)
>Subject: Audubon Society's bird "rescues"

>"The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal Damage Control (ADC)
>office poisoned dozens of herring and great blackbacked gulls on Jenny
>Island, Maine.  At whose reccomendation?  Why, the National Audubon
>Society, whose president, Peter Berle, has told the public, "Since
>1900, National Audubon has worked to make sure that all Maine seabirds
>are protected and that no species are lost."  The gulls' "sin" was to
>nest on the island, which interfered with an Audubon project to
>establish a breeding colony of common, arctic, and roseate terns and
>"leave a [more] interesting...mix of bird species for future human
>generations." 

[...]

>I can't help but feel outraged at their tactics.  On what basis does
>an organization have the right to choose what species of animal takes
>precedence over another?  The gull population has on at least these
>two instances been targeted for decimation, because they are thriving,
>and are in no danger of becoming extinct.  Endangered species then,
>according to Audubon, take precidence over non-endangered species, at
>expense of their lives.  

>This seems to point to favoritism for a certain "race" of bird, much
>like the Nazi's extermination of Jews, to let the Arian race take its
>rightful place as dominant species (in a very general sense, of
>course).  I'd like to see some discussion on this.  I agree in
>principal that endangered species should be helped, but to do so at
>the expense of another species is a very disturbing idea to me.  I 
>could never condone this practice.  The gulls have just as much right to
>exist as the puffins.

Tara,

        The Audobon Society isn't playing favorites at all -- they
are merely trying to re-establish the natural balance of bird species
that existed before over-hunting, egg collecting, and destruction of
habitat wiped out or endangered those species that are being
re-introduced.

        No species are being introduced into areas where they didn't exist
previously, and no gulls are being removed from areas where they were
naturally the dominant species.

        While it is unfortunate that gulls must be poisoned in order to
do this, it is still necessary because, as it stands, they gulls have
several unnatural advantages:

        1) Home Field Advantage.  They have established dominence at the
former breeding sites of the reintroduced species, and are familiar with
the territory.  The newly returning birds are strangers.

        2) Strength in numbers.  While a large, well-established colony of
puffins or terns is more than capable of defending itself against, and
competing with, a colony of gulls, the few pairs that would initially
return to a site would be easily overwhelmed by the gulls already there.

        3) A lot of garbage.  Like rats and roaches, gulls, especially
herring gulls, can feed on garbage.  This abundant and easy-to-locate food
source has allowed gull populations to increase far past what the
environment could have born in the past.  This is also what is causing
gull ranges to increase.  As a result, gulls can easily out-compete other
species for nesting sites.

        As for the "morality" of poisoning gulls, and any pain they might
feel, how moral is it for us to allow many more species to become extinct
because we are soft-hearted?  Human stupidity and greed caused the problem
in the first place, and at least the Audobon Society is attempting to set
things right again.

        And what is the difference between a person killing a gull so that
others can survive and a gull bashing out the brains of a tern on the beach
(this I witnessed)?  Or a tern leaving a pipefish it doesn't want to die by
it's nest?  And how many wild animals of any sort do you think drift off
blissfully into death?  Mother Nature is cruel.

        It's not that I didn't feel sorry for the gulls, but I feel that
what the A.S. is after is far more important than the gulls' right to live
there.  And if the A.S. truly had a Nazi bent they wouldn't be saving the
gulls insteead of the "weaker" and "less fit" endangered species.

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\ April, posting from my boyfriend's account, often with his knowledge./
/ e-mail replies to viking@iastate.edu with "April" in the first line  \
\ "Well, I don't know where *you're* from, bucko, but in these parts   /
/ BLT stands for 'Bloated Lizard and Toad Sandwich'." --Mark Parisi    \
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