The culprits are 3,000 cattle egrets that flew in beginning last month.
"It’s the most putrid ... smell you can imagine,” Comanche City Manager Brant Ball said.
The avian invaders have been nesting near the Stephens County town during spring and summer for years. But 3,000 settled last month in a two-acre area near a grocery store, restaurants and medical facilities, Ball said. Aside from the smell, Ball said, some business owners are worried about bacteria in the droppings affecting food and health services.
And though some cultures consider it good luck to be hit by bird droppings, Comanche residents don’t want to test the idea.
"About as soon as the sun comes up, they start swooping around the parking lot. And you know what it means when there’s a lot of birds flying around,” said Greg Clinkenbeard, co-owner of Delbert’s Supermarket. "You have to take cover.”
But all migratory birds are protected by the multinational Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the treaty generally protects the birds and their eggs from human intervention.
The federal government granted Ball permission to destroy trees the birds were nesting in, and officials soon will relocate some of the birds’ eggs. Ball hopes for approval to destroy more trees and wants to add noisemakers to make the area inhospitable to the birds.
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