Ocean City Officials Praise Early Seagull Program Results

OCEAN CITY, NJ — One week into a program in which raptors scare away seagulls, Ocean City officials like what they see. The East Coast Falcons program will cost the City $65,000 — $2,100 per day — for its use through Labor Day weekend.

Mayor Jay Gillian announced last week that Ocean City would implement the program. Falcons, hawks and owls will fly over Ocean City from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. this summer to scare away seagulls without harming them.

Several concerned citizens brought up issues of cost and potential environmental problems. Gillian said attempts to educate and curb human behavior to stop feeding seagulls hasn't worked. He also defended the program's cost and said that people's safety is top priority.

"When you’re talking about $2,000 (per day) — think about the lawsuits we’d have if suddenly a baby loses their eyeball or somebody gets hurt," Gillian said. "We start talking about how much money we’re going to spend. When somebody hits me with the money thing, they think sometimes we say, ‘Screw it, we’re going to spend $2-3,000 to stop the seagulls so people can have French fries.’"

City Business Administrator George Savastano praised the program's early results.

"Reports on the effectiveness of the program are encouraging," Savastano said at Thursday's City Council Meeting. "While it’s too soon to make a full assessment of our efforts, the City remains committed to addressing the situation and ensuring that all of our residents and visitors are able to safely enjoy their experience on the island."

Savastano emphasized that East Coast Falcons has a federal abatement permit. The organization doesn't have a depredation permit, which would allow East Coast Falcons to implement for its birds to intentionally kill seagulls.

City officials said that although aggressive seagulls have always been an issue, they received more complaints than ever in the first half of July. The City looked for solutions and found the East Coast Falcons program to mitigate the issue for the rest of this summer. Following summer, the City will decide how it should handle the seagull situation going forward.

Two citizens brought up concerns about the program during Thursday's public comment portion of the council meeting.

Ocean City resident and environmental activist Donna Moore said she has seen hawks snatch birds from her yard in the past.

"I know you were told one thing, but from my experience, I have seen that on the island," Moore said. "Because my yard is sort of a small ecosystem, I have a lot of birds. Hawks fly over, and I occasionally lose morning doves and other birds."

East Coast Falcons's birds are full by the time they fly around, Savastano said. If professionals wanted to turn them into natural predators, he said they would feed them less for a week to make them hungry.

Ocean City resident Ric Bertsch said he likes East Coast Falcons's program but said aggressive seagulls are the responsibility of Boardwalk merchants, not the taxpayers.

Several Ocean City officials, however, said aggressive seagulls are an issue on the entire island, not just the Boardwalk. Council President Peter V. Madden also described how Boardwalk issues could affect Ocean City's overall economy.

"Think about everybody that buys a beach tag that gets harassed by seagulls," Madden said. "If we don’t have a beach or a Boardwalk that people want to come to, then our real estate’s going to go in the toilet and then our taxes go up. All in all, I think it’s a good experiment. We’ll review it in the fall."

Councilman Keith Hartzell said the first thing he brought to Council in 2006 was an ordinance to ban feeding seagulls. It is still illegal to feed seagulls in Ocean City, but Hartzell said the City had to do more about the issue.

"We tried to educate people, and it just didn’t work," Hartzell said.

See the full council meeting below:

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