Ruskin

Unfriendly skies

Flocks of vultures have been threatening four pet potbellied pigs. What's a pig lover to do? Make some noise - lots of it.

By JANET ZINK
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 14, 2003

RUSKIN -- The bangers and balloons have done their jobs. Now Gracy can rest easy.

Gracy, a 4-year-old Vietnamese potbellied pig was in danger of becoming dinner for vultures until her owner, Barbara Baker, came to the rescue with pyrotechnics to scare the birds off.

Baker, who owns four potbellied pigs, first noticed the hungry vultures a month ago when she came home from the store and found a flock of the birds in the yard stalking Gracy.

"I saw about a dozen of them surrounding one of my potbellied pigs, and there was another dozen up in the oak tree above her head," Baker recalls. "I got here just in time."

She called the U.S. Department of Agriculture and talked to Laurence Brashears who advised her to buy a pyrotechnic device known as a banger to scare away the birds. Baker got one and used the orange, gun-shaped launcher, to shoot noisemakers into the air whenever vultures were nearby.

"I would run from the front yard to the back yard. I couldn't shoot enough of them to keep them way. It was like Alfred Hitchcock The Birds. It was awful," she says.

Baker's neighbor, Betty Stancil, also thought it was awful.

The noise, that is.

"She shoots this gun off that's like a d-- cannon," Stancil says. "All the neighbors have been very patient through the years with her and her stinking pigs."

Stancil says she understands passion for pets. She has two cats, one of whom was so frightened by the bangers that he hid under a bed for days. But she wants to see an end to the noise and the pigs.

"If it walks like a pig, it looks like a pig, it smells like a pig, it's a pig. You can call it a potbellied pig, but it still stinks," Stancil says.

Stancil filed noise complaints with county officials. Representatives from the Sheriff's Office, Hillsborough County code enforcement and the Environmental Protection Commission paid visits to Baker's home.

So far, Baker hasn't been cited for any infractions.

According to Marvin Blount, a field investigator for the EPC, if he receives continued complaints he will measure the noise level of the bangers to determine if they violate EPC standards.

Baker is within her rights to own the pigs.

"Potbellied pigs are considered pets just like a dog or a cat unless it's larger than 150 pounds. Then it becomes a hog, and it's a farm animal. In a residential zone, you're not permitted to have a farm animal," says Jim Blinck, field supervisor for Hillsborough County code enforcement.

Baker's biggest pig, Lady Lee, weighs a little more than 100 pounds, she says. The homemaker has lived on SW 14th Street in Ruskin since 1992 and owned potbellied pigs the whole time, but this is her first run-in with vultures.

Although they usually dine on dead animals, the USDA's Brashears says his office gets several calls a year from people whose live pigs or cattle are being threatened by vultures.

Vultures have been known to attack pregnant cows and newborn calves as well as pigs. More common than animal attacks by vultures, though, is property damage to roofs, boats and cars.

The birds appear in Hillsborough County from November to March when they migrate south to escape the cold climates in Canada and northeastern United States.

Vultures are a protected species and can't be killed. But they can be trained to stay away from a certain location by repeatedly making loud noises, waving colorful balloons in the breeze or spraying them with a water hose.

Baker says in the past week she's only had to shoot the bangers off a few times. But she's still keeping a look out.

"I won't feel comfortable until the end of March when the vultures move on," Baker says.