Clam-hungry seagulls bombard golfers

Press, 15 November 1984, Page 6

Clam-hungry seagulls bombard golfers

NZPA-AP Springfield, Massachusetts

Seagulls that are apparently mistaking golf balls for clams, which they drop from the air to crack open, have bombarded golfers into retreat from a new driving range. “Clearly the birds think the balls are clams,” said Mr Jim Baird, the conservation director for the Massachusetts Audubon Society. “It’s typical gull behaviour to pick up clams and mussels and drop them again and again until the shell breaks, he said.” The golf bell bombardment forced the closing of the driving-range at the headquarters of Smith and Wesson, the arms manufac-

turer. The gulls, residents on the fields that surround the fenced and closely-guarded plant on a bluff above the Connecticut River, would swoop, scoop up a ball, and fly off with it in their beaks, Mr Baird said. “Bui the real problems began when the birds began indiscriminately strafing, dropping the balls in futile attempts to crack them open,” he said. “The birds have no preference for white balls, he said. “They seem to go for any colour ball — green, red, whatever." Company officials, who were trying to solve the problem, had received suggestions, including

broadcasting recordings of sounds that gulls found unpleasant, or hiring a falconer, he said. “The Smith- and Wesson people just need to pick up their balls faster or learn to duck,” said Mr Baird. “Gulls will zero in on any whitish object lying on the ground that resembles a clam,” he said. * ' “Birds are creatures of habit If it was the same gulls all the time, the negative reinforcement of not having the golf balls break open when they dropped them would cause them to lose interest eventually,” he said. “But if they keep getting new gulls all the time, it’s not a problem that will go away."