The foul-smelling white substance cakes lamp posts, covers sidewalks and park benches and stains the bushes and trees. Parked cars become spattered in a matter of minutes along ”bird poop alley”.
Thousands of cormorants are making a stinking mess around Florida’s Lake Eola, a recreation area consisting of a sparkling fountain, a waterside café, swan-boat rides, a running trail and an amphitheatre amid the condos and high-rises of downtown Orlando.
The problem has gotten so bad city officials posted four signs last week that warn: ”Caution: Entering bird dropping area”.
Angie Martinez parked her red Honda Civic under a tree for 20 minutes on Tuesday when it was hit by the poop storm.
”I went straight to get my car cleaned,” she said. ”I think it was kind of funny. As soon as a turned away, I saw my car bombed from the birds.”
Indira Sawh and her co-workers have a bird’s-eye view of the problem. They work in an office building across the street.
”The other day we saw four guys in suits going to lunch and the guy’s entire suit got covered in bird poop,” Sawh said. ”The smell is the worst part of it all.”
Cormorants, which dive into the water to catch fish, are such prolific poopers that their South American cousins helped create Peru’s guano islands.
The situation was tolerable until city workers removed cypress trees last year from a small island in the middle of the lake. ”The bird droppings were polluting the lake so bad that it was creating algae that was creating a nasty smell,” said Orlando Rolon, a spokesperson for mayor Buddy Dyer.
The birds quickly migrated to nearby oaks and soon sidewalks, benches and people were bombarded with droppings, which smell like a sewer. The city tried to remove the trees but learned that the birds’ nests were protected under federal law, Rolon said.
Rolon said the city has consulted with botanists about treating the trees with chemicals so that they produce more branches, discouraging the migrating birds from nesting there next year.
In the meantime, the city has the sidewalks and street pressure-washed twice a week.
Some Orlando residents are for the birds. Jose Vega and his sister, Maria, enjoyed a fearless stroll down the speckled sidewalk on Tuesday.
”I love the birds,” Jose said. ”If it poops on my head, what am I going to do? I’ll go wash it off.” — Sapa-AP