Vultures roost, wreak havoc in DeKalb County neighborhood

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A DeKalb County neighborhood has been swarmed with vultures for months.

Richard Lusane lives off Meadow Vista Drive and is frustrated over the flock of birds taking over his Lithonia community.

“They’re always just circling right here in the back. Circling in the back. It has my dog going crazy and he’s running to all the windows barking and going crazy,” Lusane said. “I might get a rock every now and then just to scare them away but other than that that’s the only thing I know to do.”

Lusane and his neighbors said dozens of massive vultures began roosting on their roofs, cars, and trees a couple of months ago.

“The main concern is the damage that they can do to our roofs. They land in on the inside you can hear them pecking loudly,” Homeowner Cynthia Brantley said.

It turns out the DeKalb County landfill is less than five miles away from the neighborhood and a wastewater treatment plant is even closer. So, could that explain what looks like a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock’s film “The Birds?”

“It’s probably not due to the landfill. They probably have a good food source at the landfill, but that landfill is not the reason that they are all of a sudden seeing lots of them there,” Emily Rushton with the Wildlife Services Division of the Georgia Department of Agriculture said.

Rushton said the vultures are likely migrating south and have found a temporary safe spot to roost.

“Everybody’s roofline has poop all over it. If the rain doesn’t wash it off, then they have to pay money to get that fixed and treated,” Lusane said.

Some of the vultures have even encroached upon Lusane’s front door.

“What you can do is what we call hazing which is basically to bother the birds and scare them away and harass them,” Rushton said.

Vultures are federally protected, but if they stick around, they can be destructive damaging roof shingles, car paint and window caulking.

“Something that works really well that is pretty simple is a laser pointer. Like right at dusk when they are coming into roost you can take a laser pointer and shine it around and that will really bother them,” Rushton said.

If all else fails, the USDA Wildlife Services can provide federal assistance to remove them.

“We’re concerned about our roofs, our safety, our kids and you know our pets,” Brantley said. “We want them to be protected, but we want them to go away.”