The vultures that roost primarily in Fuller Hollow near Harmon Park during the winter have caused controversy over the years. They can damage the roofs of historic buildings, and leave white excrement on people’s yards, decks and cars.
Six or seven years ago, the birds—mostly black vultures and some turkey vultures—were primarily confined to a few trees in the hollow, and one large tree died because of the impact of their weight and the toxicity of excrement.
This year, some observers believe the population of the vultures has exploded, more than doubling. Nearly every tree up and down the quarter mile Fuller Hollow is weighed down with vultures each night. Lower limbs of the trees and the ground are covered with what looks like snow—but is actually vulture waste.
It is possible the Eureka Springs now has the largest vulture roost in the country. An internet search found no other colonies larger than 300.
Some fans of the vultures point out they play an important role in the environment by eating dead animals, including roadkill. But the vultures today may nearly equal the population of Eureka Springs. The difference is there is a sewage treatment plants for humans, and the vulture waste flows down into one of the city’s most beautiful springs, and on downstream eventually ending up in Table Rock Lake where people swim and fish.
It can be difficult to get an idea of the scope of the vulture population growth by observing from Fuller Street, a dirt road, because of trees blocking the view in the steep hollow. But a bird’s eye video taken by Cameron Dunaway, Eureka Drone Solutions, is probably worth not a thousand, but 10,000 words. The video that can be viewed youtu.be/nr_9pl4nFek. Dunaway, who donated his time to provide the video, said that no vultures were disturbed by his drone, which was quite a distance away. A zoom camera was used to capture the footage.
Scot Halsell, who has been observing the vultures for about six years, estimates that in earlier years, the vulture population grew from a third to a half each year.
“This year it looks like they doubled,” Halsell said. “Just like humans, they have just overbred, and the environment can’t support them. There aren’t enough trees for them to roost in, so too many roost in one tree. Some will fall off and die.
“Vultures lay their eggs on the ground instead of making a nest in a tree. I bet their nests are in Fuller Hollow. That turns it into an even more a precarious situation. This is a species protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty. They are even more protected if they are breeding. But, at some point, this 100-year-old law that needs to be revisited. My eyes can see white excrement from the top to the bottom of Fuller Hollow. Right now, it looks like Fuller Hollow is going to end up being a Superfund site.”
Halsell advocates that the birds be discouraged from roosting in Fuller Hollow and be encouraged to move on somewhere else where they don’t harm the groundwater and beauty of Eureka Springs.
“That was a great creek through Fuller Hollow, and there is a waterfall down there where kids can’t play anymore,” Halsell said. “I also think we can’t rely on any state or federal agency to solve this problem for us. I think the answer is a good, solid community effort to drive these birds out with noise or something else. Clapping is the most effective thing I’ve found. They are very flighty. When I clap, they fly off every time, hundreds and hundreds of them.”
Some bird lovers have said the vultures may have roosted in Fuller Hollow for thousands of years, but historian and banker John Cross said that the populations being seen today far surpass what was seen in the past.
“At one point do we protect ourselves and not the vultures?” Cross asks. “There are far more of them than ten or twenty years ago. The population has really accelerated, and they are causing a lot of problems. I have lived here all my life and I’m 88 years old. We never had all this stuff before. The laws need to be looked at. It is a bulging problem in Eureka Springs, and if something is not done about it, the situation is going to get worse.”
Cross suspects part of the issue is that no one hunts or traps raccoons, possums, foxes and squirrels anymore. But there are more highways and more vehicles. He said the vultures are coming in because of the roadkill.
“Everywhere I go there is roadkill,” Cross said. “That is their job to cleanup dead animals. But the more you have to cleanup, the more vultures you are going to get.”
The issue got personal for Cross when he found two vulture eggs in his barn located south of town. Then a bank employee who lives on Blue Springs Road found two vulture eggs in her barn.
“The population is booming, and we have to do something about it,” Cross said. “When we are finding them here, there and everywhere, you know we have a problem. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. People who say we should leave them alone would start screaming if they were destroying their property.”
Ann Armstrong, outgoing city clerk, is concerned that trees are dying as a result of their roosting. If she doesn’t put black plastic bags over her car mirrors, they will roost on the mirrors and poop down her car. She has been trying to find out about a power outage years ago at the major substation at the bottom of Fuller Hollow. There have been suspicions that heat from that substation is one thing that attracts vultures to the area as vultures are soaring birds that rely on updrafts to travel.
“I would think SWEPCO would have a concern about this situation, but so far no one has zeroed in on when the power outage happened and how long the power was out,” Armstrong said.
One of her biggest concerns is water quality.
“It is going to take more than a handful of people to address the situation,” Armstrong said. “There have been numerous efforts to address this problem in the past, and the efforts were always drowned out by people who were opposed to the vultures being harassed. If a hundred people get involved, perhaps something can happen.”
Loud cannons were used years ago to try to discourage the roosts, but some residents were up in arms about the noise disruption near their homes.
The City of Eureka Springs has cooperated with government wildlife officials to provide solutions that can help discourage vulture roosting. Earlier in the year, a letter from Mayor Butch Berry offered the services of wildlife officials to put up effigies of vultures that can discourage roosting and preserve buildings. Berry said he was disappointed more building owners didn’t take advantage of the offer. The city put up two vulture effigies to protect the historic Aud building.
Table Rock Lake resident Smith Treuer has seen that the vultures can definitely damage roofs and even peck away at car insulation.
“Yes, they do a lot of damage, and the white excrement is pretty messy,” Treuer said. “It stains and seems to be a bit caustic. They like the winds created by the cliffs at the lakes. There are spiral winds they like to soar on. They seem to be all over the country. I travel around the country and see them everywhere. The population out here at the lake seems to be pretty steady.”
The warming climate could be another factor, said Dr. Joe Neal, co-author of Arkansas Birds. “This may have a lot to do with why black vultures and some other species further south (black-bellied whistling-ducks, great-tailed grackles, etc.) have expanded to our region with growing numbers,” Neal wrote in an email.