Photo Fiona Sunquist ©
Vultures in South Florida have a new bad habit. They have started peeling windscreen wipers off vehicles and shredding the rubber weather stripping from car doors and sunroofs. The problem has become so bad that Everglades National Park Authorities have installed signs warning people about the avian vandals.
No one knows why the South Florida vultures have started targeting cars, they don’t eat the rubber, just play with it. Park authorities can only suggest that people don’t park near the tall trees where vultures roost, or cover their vehicles with tarps. Some have found that attaching a few thin plastic grocery bags to the windscreen wipers works to keep the birds away— the plastic bags flap in the wind and often persuade the vultures to go elsewhere. When all else fails, park staff fire a canon to disperse the vultures and convince them to roost away from the parking lots.
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