Atlantic City wages war on seagulls

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Kim Yost, strolling the Atlantic City boardwalk with her daughters Emily and Caitlyn, tossed pieces of bread toward a flock of plump seagulls, who promptly bullied their way past some pigeons to grab the free food.

"I call them ocean rats," the Weatherly, Pa., resident said as the gulls stood obediently on the boardwalk, expecting another handout. "They're like rats in the city. They'll take food right out of your hand. But the kids love them. That's our entertainment. The adults have the casino; the kids have the birds."

Daniel Nita, sitting in his fourth-floor office at Caesars Atlantic City, is not so benign about the birds that have seemingly taken over the world's most famous boardwalk.

"Seagulls seem to drop more stuff from the sky," the Caesars senior vice president and general manager said diplomatically. "I have not been victimized, but my wife and many of my colleagues have. I have not experienced anything on my shoulders, but when I walk down the boardwalk, I have to bob and weave."

Atlantic City has declared war on seagulls. For generations, seagulls have been an essential part of the Jersey Shore experience — one beach Web site rhapsodizes about "quiet relaxation with the surf and seagulls" — but Atlantic City has decided it has had enough.

Next month, the Atlantic City Special Improvement District office will install some sort of anti-gull protection — likely fish netting — above a 20-foot stretch of the 60-foot-wide boardwalk in front of Bally's Wild Wild West casino.

If the test is successful, the protective netting or device would be installed along a 350-foot stretch of the boardwalk in time for the summer season, and at some point along the entire boardwalk. Harrah's Entertainment, which owns Bally's, Caesars, Harrah's and the Showboat in Atlantic City, will fund the 350-foot test area at an estimated cost of $3,000.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has sent the city a letter warning that it could face fines of up to $15,000 for every federally protected bird maimed or killed by the netting.

"This is going to cause a great deal of animal suffering," said Daphna Nachminovitch, director of PETA's cruelty-investigations department. "This has been done in the past. Birds will get caught in the fishing line and have their wings broken. It is a slow, painful death, hanging by a wing on a fishing line. It's just plain torture."

But the Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort has used netting at its beach bar and spa deck for several years, and spokesman Brian Cahill said he has not heard of any reports of injured or dead birds.

"It's been very effective," Cahill said. "Visually, they've been hardly noticeable to our guests. The only ones who seem to notice are the gulls."

The netting or device will not be the first offensive in the city's war against birds. Fiberglass-topped spikes on building ledges, finials atop lampposts, even heated pads on rooftops have been used to deter birds.

Observers agree on one thing: Gulls have become more aggressive in recent years. These are not birds that patiently wait until you are finished with your burger and fries before making their move. They home in like food-seeking missiles and snatch edibles right out of your hands.

"If you had a hot dog and you went to reach for something, that hot dog is gone," marveled Ralph Triboletti, the Special Improvement District's economic-development manager.

Blame much of the seagull explosion on the human population. People continue to feed birds on the Atlantic City boardwalk, even if there is a local ordinance forbidding it. Compounding the problem is the recent proliferation of outdoor cafes and picnic tables along the boardwalk.

The seagull may be Public Enemy No. 1 in "America's Favorite Playground," but gulls have many admirers. There are 27 North American species, including black-headed gulls, yellow-footed gulls, slaty-backed gulls, laughing gulls and herring gulls.

"Gulls are very intelligent, playful, supremely aerial birds," said Jonathan Balcombe, an ethologist (student of animal behavior) and biologist with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. "I've always been impressed with the chutzpah and planning that goes into their finding food."

There always has been an air of vague menace about gulls, though. What bird is the first to exhibit strange behavior in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds," the best killer-bird movie of all time? A seagull, of course. One smacks Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) in the head.

John Anderson, a professor of ecology and natural history at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, has been on both sides of the seagull fence. For 20 years he worked on gull control in Maine, where he participated in the killing of "'several thousand" gulls. For the past 10 years, he has studied gulls, and he is an opponent of the "fishing line" approach.

"A local landowner who was tired of having gulls nest near his house tried it two years ago, and it was a disaster," Anderson said. "'Many birds got caught in the fishing line and died agonizing deaths, and it did not deter the gulls."

Whether the seagull is a winged wonder or a terror from the skies, Atlantic City officials say the time is now to launch an offensive. PETA, meanwhile, hopes the city will consider "more humane alternatives."

What happens if netting doesn't work? "We will retrench and see if there are opportunities to encourage people not to feed the birds," Nita said. "There is a place for gulls. We just want to keep them off the boardwalk."