On August 3, 2014 Southern Fishing News published a story on the buzzard problem in the parking area of Safety Harbor just below Wheeler Dam on Wilson Lake. The problem with the birds was their appetite for anything rubber on vehicles.
The “normal” sights at Safety Harbor on Wilson Lake. SFN photo
Fishermen would routinely discover the rubber was missing from their windshield wipers. Real hungry birds would take door trim- all of it. Arrival at the parking area treated boaters and fishermen to a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”. Ugly buzzards roamed the parking lot, most just walking around, in flocks targeting tasty-looking vehicle rubber. Why? Who knows.
The problem was so bad many just wrote the Safety Harbor Ramp off and started using other ramps. Having to use alternate ramps meant running from, say, the Lock Six Ramp on Wilson Lake back up to fish below the dam.
Last week the opportunity presented itself to make a quick drive thru the Safety Harbor parking lot just to see if TVA had gotten control of the situation. Not one single bird was in sight. The normal view of the big buzzards perched on most every vehicle was not the scene. Nary a bird was in the lot. This discovery was cause for great joy. Long boat runs could now be avoided by going back to the Safety Harbor Ramp. Things were looking up…I thought.
I noticed something out of place on a nearby truck. The driver had put a wrinkled paper bag on the antenna. I thought that was kinda odd. Continuing to look around I spotted another truck with an empty plastic bag tied to each windshield wiper. In fact, several vehicles had plastic bags on the wipers. What was going on? As I guided my car around to the next row of boat trailers and tow vehicles I noticed something stranger than plastic bags on windshield wipers. There were owls sitting on the hood and top of trucks. Yes, owls. Plastic static owls and prism owls hanging from a line attached to a metal arm which was anchored in a bright orange safety cone. What tha?
Then I noticed that several vehicles had the owl ornaments. Something was saying the buzzard problem had not been fixed.
One driver had a full vehicle cover over his car. Another had more owls PLUS a tarp.
As I was about to leave a truck pulled up to the ramp and the fishermen launched their boat. Being friendly I said, “Looks like ya’ll might be going fishing’” Now that’s original. As I was talking to one of the
“Worth a try.”
guys I noticed the other man was pulling stuff out of the truck- more owls! These guys were not kidding around. They deployed three owls on the truck, Plastic and hanging prism models with orange safety cone. I inquired if those defenses worked against the rubber-robbers. “I don’t know”, said one of the guys. “But it’s worth a try”.
Obviously the buzzard issue is still an issue at Safety Harbor. The guys I had been talking to noted their buddy’s vehicle, parked next to theirs and completely covered with a tarp, had been stripped of all the exposed rubber the day before in the lot.
Word from these gents was the Federal government had approved the “forceful” removal of the buzzard flock but TVA had not taken any action.
So, to make a long story a little longer, the use of alternate ramps is still advised…unless you got some really mean looking owls to stand guard on your vehicle.
