Scaring America's mascot?: Washington county proposes shooting fireworks near bald eagles

A county in Washington state is requesting permission to scare away bald eagles, the nation's mascot, by shooting fireworks near them.

King County made the proposal, documents say, because other methods have failed to prevent eagles from diving into a landfill and dropping potentially dangerous trash on homes.

If the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approves the permit application, biologists at one of the state's largest landfills will begin launching bangers, which produce a boom after flying 90 feet, and screamers, which screech while climbing 300 feet high.

More than 50 individual bald eagles swarm the Cedar Hills Landfill per day in the spring, according to the application, costing the county $150,000 per year as workers try to deter the birds with tarps, wires and noise cannons.

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The proposal to deter the species, first reported by the Seattle Times, isn't unheard of, said Sidney Campbell, Raptor Program Manager at The American Bald Eagle Foundation in Alaska. Bald eagles survive by scavenging, she said, and are notorious for searching landfills for scraps.

"These guys are pretty heavily populating these garbage dumps because in the winter especially, when their food is scarce, that's a really easy way for them to find it," Campbell said. "The whole prerogative of a wild animal is to find food. So if you found one easy source of food, you're not gonna forget it."

Reports of eagles picking through trash have emerged from places such as Dutch Harbor, Alaska to Prince Rupert, British Columbia. No longer an endangered species, the bald eagle is still protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act as well as the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, meaning killing them is a federal crime.

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Under the King County firework proposal pending approval, biologists will aim to shoo the eagles away from the landfill, not kill them, said Doug Williams, a spokesperson for the local Department of Natural Resources and Parks.

"You'll fire it up in the air over the tops of where the birds are and then hopefully it scatters the birds below," Williams said. "...The only way you would manage to harm a bird or a person or anything else with one of these is if it physically hit them, and that's not what's happening."

The landfill stores all of the county's solid waste, with the exception of that from Seattle and Milton. County officials ban residents from dumping hazardous waste there, Williams said, but that doesn't mean eagles don't find poisoned trash to drop on nearby homes.

If approved, the permit will allow King County to harass eagles with fireworks through September. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Shooting fireworks near bald eagles: King County considers trash fix