Earlier this summer, a seagull flew down onto the boardwalk and tried to steal some food.
The seagulls that quack and swoop down to snatch french fries and other food from unsuspecting tourists on Ocean City's Boardwalk seem to be better behaved these days.
Earlier this month, three city council members complained that the seagulls seemed to be acting bolder and congregating in larger numbers on the boardwalk this summer, despite measures that include using trained falcons and hawks to scare them away.
“I think for some reason, they just really like french fries,” City Councilman Keith Hartzell speculated during the Aug. 8 board meeting.
But Hartzell offered a much more upbeat update on the gulls at the Aug. 22 City Council meeting.
“I was able to eat pizza last night without being attacked,” he said, reporting that gull activity seemed to have decreased in recent weeks.
Hartzell praised East Coast Falcons and city officials for the “great job they've done.” Ocean City has hired East Coast Falcons to remove nuisance and aggressive seagulls for the past six years. The company uses trained falcons, hawks and even the occasional menacing owl to scare the gulls off the boardwalk.
Despite these measures, Hartzell and City Council members Tony Porcini and Jody Lebchuk said at the Aug. 8 meeting that seagulls are congregating on the boardwalk in large numbers at times, making them more of a nuisance than usual.
Hartzell half-jokingly wondered if the gulls were getting “smarter.”
When East Coast Falcons was awarded the $328,000 contract earlier this year, the company was given responsibility for scare away seagulls from the Boardwalk, as well as the downtown business district, the 34th Street business district and other areas of the city.
City council members acknowledged it would be impossible to completely eliminate seagulls from the Boardwalk or other parts of town.
“We'll never have zero seagulls on the coast,” Levchuk said in an interview, “but we'd rather have a little gull problem than a big one.”
Levchuk, whose family owns several Gillie's-branded stores along the Boardwalk, including the Gillie's French Fry Factory, speculated at the Aug. 8 City Council meeting that the East Coast Falcons may be having a harder time scaring away the seagulls now that they patrol the larger area of town rather than just the Boardwalk.
Hartzell and Lebchuk both said they believe the East Coast Falcons are doing a good job overall of controlling seagulls.
Hartzell's update, released on August 22, may indicate that gull-control efforts are now more effective at driving the nuisance birds back into their natural habitats, such as bays, marshes and oceans.
As part of their agreement with Ocean City, the East Coast Falcons and their trained birds of prey will be in the city through Oct. 19 to continue scaring away seagulls.