Great Bend — A large-scale poisoning program to control starling, grackle and blackbird populations has pitted two government agencies against each other as residents complain about the blankets of dead birds covering their yards.
Area feedlots are working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Manhattan office on the program, said Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area Field Supervisor Karl Grover.
"They have poisoned the birds in the past, but not in this large of a scale," Grover said. "I am opposed to this method because I don't think they investigated nonlethal control methods enough in their environmental assessment."
An estimated 25 million blackbirds roost in the Cheyenne Bottoms.
Last year three feedlots in the Great Bend area reported $600,000 in damages from the birds, said USDA District Supervisor of Wildlife Services Tom Halstead.
USDA Wildlife Services spent the last six months developing an environmental assessment of the area and published two notices calling for any public comment, he said. They
didn't get any feedback from the public, other than from Cheyenne Bottoms.
In addition to the poisoning, the agency also plans to use nonlethal alternatives such as propane cannons and fireworks.
"We don't have an actual number of birds that we are targeting," Halstead said. "We just want to decrease the damage at the feed yards to acceptable levels. It would be nice if we didn't have to kill any birds, but when the damage estimates approach $10,000 per day something has to be done."
Several residents are also calling about the blankets of dying and dead blackbirds covering their yards.
"We have had a lot of phone calls because we are the only Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks office in the county," Grover said. "I don't want to be placed in a position where I am defending a program that I am opposed to."
One homeowner who lives a half-mile north of Mid America Feedyard Inc. in Great Bend, has shoveled thousands of the birds from his yard.
"I know that they have to get rid of the birds somehow. I just wish they wouldn't do it in my back yard," Richard Hawthorne said. "There is no getting around the fact that there are too many birds."
He said he has filled eight leaf bags after shoveling dead birds from his yard.
Halstead said his agency applies the poison, a chemical called DRC 1339.
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