SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) - Orange County has hired peregrine falcons to fly over its landfills and defend the garbage from seagulls, but the birds don’t work without a cost.
The Orange County register reports (https://bit.ly/2w0jPvl ) that the county has approved $1.8 million in falcon contracts throughout the past five years. The Board of Supervisors approved the last year of that contract on Tuesday.
The falcons have undeniably been productive, though.
The birds were deployed in 2013 when the dump collectively averaged 458 gull sightings per day. Last year, that number dropped to two sightings per day.
In July 2016, the county temporarily suspended the program as an experiment to see if the gulls would return - and they did, proving the falcons are working their tails off.
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Information from: The Orange County Register, https://www.ocregister.com
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