A2 THE BULLETIN • MONDAY, APRIL 26, 2021
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LOCAL, STATE & REGION
DESCHUTES COUNTY
COVID-19 data for Sunday, April 25:
Deschutes County cases: 7,635 (85 new cases)
Deschutes County deaths: 73 (zero new deaths)
Crook County cases: 946 (15 new cases)
Crook County deaths: 19 (zero new deaths)
Jefferson County cases: 2,095 (1 new case)
Jefferson County deaths: 32 (zero new deaths)
Oregon cases: 180,700 (780 new cases)
Oregon deaths: 2,485 (1 new death)
BULLETIN
GRAPHIC
129 new cases
130
(Dec. 4)
What is COVID-19? A disease caused by a coronavirus.
Symptoms (including fever and shortness of breath) can
be severe, even fatal, though some cases are mild.
108 new cases
120
(Jan. 1)
7-day
average
90
new
cases
Ways to help limit its spread: 1. Wash hands often with
soap and water for at least 20 seconds. 2. Avoid touching
your face. 3. Avoid close contact with sick people. 4. Stay
6 feet from others and wear a face covering or mask.
5. Cover a sneeze with a tissue or cough into your elbow.
6. Clean frequently touched objects and surfaces.
110
103 new cases
(April 23)
100
(Nov. 27)
90
80
50
new
cases
(Feb. 17)
GENERAL
INFORMATION
47 new cases
70
60
47 new cases
(April 8)
50
(Nov. 14)
541-382-1811
(Oct. 31)
16 new cases
(July 16)
30
(Sept. 19)
9 new cases
ONLINE
40
*State data
unavailable
for Jan. 31
31 new cases
28 new cases
8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri.
www.bendbulletin.com
SOURCES: OREGON HEALTH AUTHORITY,
DESCHUTES COUNTY HEALTH SERVICES
New COVID-19 cases per day
20
(May 20)
1st case
10
(March 11)
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INVASIVE OR INTRIGUING?
Starlings in Oregon are a pest to some and a fascinating species facing ‘bio bigotry’ to others
BY MEGAN BANTA
The Register-Guard (Eugene)
A
s employees at Short
Mountain Landfill
maneuver heavy ma-
chinery to compact
trash, a throng of birds lifts and
swarms before settling back
down on the garbage.
The birds aren’t seagulls, ra-
vens, crows or magpies — all of
which are common at landfills.
They’re European starlings.
An invasive species, star-
lings closely resemble black-
birds and often draw the ire
of many birders, farmers and
others because they can pose
a threat to native bird species
and crops. Invasive species are
living organisms that are not
native to an ecosystem and
cause harm.
On farms, starlings are most
noticeable among the pest
birds, said Jenifer Cruikshank,
who works for the Oregon
State University Extension Ser-
vice focusing on dairy farms.
“There’s just so many of
them, and they’re kind of vora-
cious eaters,” she said.
Starlings also have some
beneficial qualities, though,
said Dan Gleason, a former
University of Oregon ornithol-
ogy professor and owner of
Wild Birds Unlimited in Eu-
gene, such as the ability to eat
some invasive insects.
People can do things to dis-
courage starlings from com-
ing back if they see them, said
Gleason and Rick Boatner,
invasive species coordinator
for the Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife.
The species is so well-estab-
lished, Boatner said, that any
efforts to drive them out might
work temporarily but aren’t
likely to be permanent.
Introduction to Oregon
European starlings, as the
descriptor in their name would
suggest, did not originate in
the United States.
While starlings look a lot
like and often flock with black-
birds, there are ways to tell
them apart. Both species have
iridescent plumage, but star-
lings have a dark upperwing
and pale underwing. During
mating season, they also have a
bright yellow bill.
They were introduced to
Central Park from Europe
in the late 1800s. The goal at
the time, Gleason said, was
to bring over every bird men-
tioned in Shakespeare’s plays.
It took a couple tries for the
birds to survive — starlings ar-
en’t forest birds, Gleason said.
But starlings started flour-
ishing after being released on
Long Island, where it was ur-
banized enough for them to
nest.
The state defines starlings as
predatory animals and invasive
and doesn’t provide protection
for the species like it does for
native birds.
By the 1960s, the species was
common in Oregon, Gleason
said, and they have become nu-
merous because “we’ve made
good habitat” for them.
And where they go, they
often drive other birds out of
their nests to use as their own
home.
Starlings are assertive, said
Barbara Gleason, who runs
Wild Birds Unlimited along
Stephanie Zollshan/The Berkshire Eagle via AP/file
A European starling eats berries from a tree in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, after a winter storm in 2015.
with her husband.
Dan Gleason goes a step fur-
ther, describing them as “a lit-
tle aggressive.” They can even
drive a wood duck out of its
nest, he said.
Damage to fields and crops
They effect animals beyond
other bird species, too.
On feed lots, Boatner, said,
they’ll eat food that’s supposed
to go to pigs and cows.
Cruickshank, who holds
a doctorate in dairy science,
works with dairy producers of
all sizes and said starlings are
a “major problem” on dairy
farms and other farms with
livestock.
Most dairy farmers are feed-
ing hundreds and hundreds of
cows, she said, and will store
food in open bays so it’s acces-
sible. That also leaves it open to
pest birds, including starlings,
she said.
The birds will pick grain out
of mixed food meant to cover
all of a cow’s nutritional needs,
she said, and they mostly de-
plete spots near the entry of
feed barns.
“What you’ll get is the cows
that end up in those more
greatly depleted spots in the
feed bunk are going to be your
cows who are lower in the peck-
ing order,” Cruikshank said.
They also do damage on
grass fields, Boatner said.
Starlings have a long beak
and can pull up and eat planted
seeds, hindering crop produc-
tion.
They generally don’t enjoy
seeds, Dan Gleason said, but
they do like to eat apples, blue-
berries, cherries, strawberries,
figs and many other cultivated
fruits.
They’ll take little bites out
of individual cherries, Cruik-
shank added, and generally
cause issues for fruit producers.
Starlings also are numerous
in the United States — based
on population counts, there
are more in the U.S. now than
there are in Europe.
They’re especially abundant
in urban areas.
“They habitat around peo-
ple really well,” Boatner said.
“They’ve learned really well to
“As a birder,
you don’t really
want to see them
around. As a
biologist, I find
them fascinating.”
— Dan Gleason, a former
University of Oregon
ornithology professor
take advantage of humans.”
Yet many humans find them
an annoyance.
Little things make them
‘not as negative’
For some people, that’s sim-
ply bias toward starlings as a
non-native species, Dan Glea-
son said.
He called this attitude “bio
bigotry” and said it can mean
people don’t really take the
time to look at a species be-
cause of prejudice.
Dan Gleason doesn’t want
to see starlings proliferate, but
they do some things that are
beneficial.
For example, they can push
their beak down in a hole and
push deep enough to get larvae
of crane flies that native birds
miss, and they eat other agri-
cultural pests, many of which
also aren’t native.
They’re pretty in their own
way, Barbara Gleason said, and
it’s often beautiful when they
fly in swooping, intricately co-
ordinated patterns through
the sky. That pattern, know as
a murmuration, is more com-
mon in Europe, and scientists
believe the birds use it as pro-
tection from predators.
They’re also good mimics,
Dan Gleason said. If you hear
a duck up a tree or a hawk
screech without seeing one in
the sky, it could be a starling.
Little things, he said, make
them not as negative, and there
are plenty of fascinating things
about starlings.
“As a birder, you don’t re-
ally want to see them around,”
he said. “As a biologist, I find
them fascinating.”
Biologists like Dan Gleason
know so much about starlings
— and, often by extension,
other birds — because they’re
used heavily in research. You
don’t need a permit to take
starlings from the wild or re-
search on them like you do for
native birds.
Take away their food source
and they’ll leave
For those who do find see
starlings as pests, though, there
are ways to get rid of them.
People can do “just about
anything” to starlings, including
shooting and trapping them,
if they don’t violate a city or
county ordinance, Boatner said.
The Gleasons recommend
less drastic measures, though.
People can drive them away
with CDs or foil tins or noise
cannons, they said, but the
birds typically figure out the
distractions or loud noises
won’t hurt them and come
back.
The best thing to do, Dan
Gleason said, is to take away
their food source.
That’s going to be hard
somewhere like the landfill, he
said, where they’re likely gath-
ering because of an abundance
of insects and other inverte-
brates.
The county tries to man-
age starlings and other bird
populations at the landfill by
restricting how much area is
being used to compact trash,
spokeswoman Devon Ash-
bridge said.
“By reducing the footprint of
the open cell, we make it a less
attractive location for the star-
lings,” she said.
The landfill supervisor im-
plemented the technique a few
years ago, she said, and it has
helped.
People can help the landfill
manage starlings by reduc-
ing the amount of food waste
they throw out, Ashbridge
added.
Food makes up about 18%
of what an average resident
throws away and is the single
largest category in the county’s
waste stream, said Angie Mar-
zano, a waste reduction spe-
cialist for the county.
Around 20% to 30% of what
people throw away could have
been eaten, she said, and part
of the county’s effort to reduce
food waste is “just trying to
teach residents to eat the food
that they buy.”
“One of the single greatest
things you can do is just eat-
ing the expensive, organic food
that you buy,” Marzano said.
People who live in a house in
Eugene can put any food waste
they do generate into their
yard debris container, she said,
and those who live in apart-
ments could try reaching out
to a neighbor or a participating
restaurant nearby.
It doesn’t take a lot of effort,
Marzano added, but has many
benefits.
In the case of bird feeders,
it’s a little easier to deter star-
lings, Barbara Gleason said.
She recommends people use a
suet feeder and put it in a cage
so the starlings can’t reach in.
There are “all sorts of bird-
feeder designs” that can dis-
courage starlings, Boatner said
Farmers, landfill operators
and others dealing with large
populations can contact a wild-
life control agent with the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
There’s an office of the depart-
ment’s wildlife services pro-
gram in Portland.
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