While Jefferson and Greene County are working to lure new residents, there is a group of new residents who are not welcome. The Greene County secondary roads department has taken action to move them along, but it’s up for debate whether the effort has made a difference.
The residents: turkey vultures. They aren’t new to town. For years they’ve used a cellular tower east of the high school to keep an eye on the Raccoon River Valley Trail. They’ve moved “uptown,” though, and they’re not so welcome surveying the town from the top of the Mahanay Bell Tower. People have seen as many as 30 turkey vultures perched on the steel framework for the bells. It’s not that they’re large and black and scary looking that has people talking about them. It’s the mess they leave below, on the courthouse plaza, on the outdoor furniture outside the bell tower, and on the bell tower itself that has made them unwelcome residents.
The secondary roads department is involved because it’s the county’s job to maintain the bell tower and the courthouse grounds. Secondary roads employee Don Van Gilder is hesitant to say why the birds have moved in, but he points out that the actual bells were taken out of use in December. Until last week, only recorded music had been played from the bell tower. He suggests that the vibration of the bells through the steel kept the turkey vultures from landing. The bells are ringing again in attempt to move the birds on.
County engineer Wade Weiss talked with the supervisors Monday about other options. He provided photos of bird spikes that are used all over the country to keep birds away from public buildings. The birds stay away because the spikes are flexible enough to bend when a bird tries to land on it, and birds, particularly ones as large as turkey vultures, need a solid footing under them.
Weiss said an electrified pad on top of the bell tower is another option.
The spikes are relatively inexpensive and the supervisors were interested in that option until Weiss led into a discussion of maintenance needed on the stained glass in the courtroom and the dome of the rotunda. The expense and critical nature of that project put the problem of the turkey vultures on the proverbial “back burner.”
