Gulls

Readers may have noticed sea gulls frequenting shopping malls and other areas far from the seashore. The gulls have come inland in search of food as there isn't enough food for them at this time of year in their natural habitat. People can help save the birds from sure starvation by feeding them daily. They will eat all table scraps, including discarded fat and chicken skins. Be sure to cut the food into small pieces to enable the birds to swallow it. I find it convenient to buy large bags of dog food.

A longshoreman plans to appeal a judge's verdict convicting him of killing 189 seagulls with a pickup truck at a South Philadelphia pier and fining him $75 for each dead bird - $14,175. Daniel Gallagher, 50, could have been fined $47,800 yesterday, but Municipal Court Judge Deborah Shelton Griffin rejected a prosecution request to do so, saying she believed the slaughter at the Packer Marine Terminal was an accident. But accident or not, Griffin said the law gave her no leeway because the prosecution did not have to prove willfulness or intent to win its case.

All along Delsea Drive, the lilacs are in bloom, pale and purple, bending in the breeze, sending fragrances down Deptford Township's nameless paths. But not the paths of New Sharon. Here, in this corner of the township, residents' noses have grown accustomed to the hogs. For decades, the ranch-style homes on Margaret Avenue have stood like a peninsula in a vast sea of hogs, grunting, rubbing, scratching, eating. Hundreds of them, on three hog farms. And now, the gulls. Untold numbers, drawn to the mountains of hog slop.

As the sun rose over Atlantic City International Airport on a recent summer day, a white pickup truck rolled onto the runway. Inside the truck, two agents from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal Damage Control unit prepared to begin their mission: disperse flocks of laughing gulls, by any means. The pickup moved slowly, from one runway to the next, occasionally looping around a taxiway. At the first sighting of a flock of gulls, one agent slipped into the cassette deck a tape recording of laughing gulls in distress.

Sometimes it seems the laughing gulls that fill the skies over John F. Kennedy International Airport are just mocking Sam Chevalier when they open their beaks and chortle, "Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haah-haah-haah. " The birds have defied almost every tactic that Chevalier has used to scare them away from the runways, where they pose a potentially disastrous hazard to planes landing and taking off. Inflatable owls didn't do the trick - they just provided the gulls with convenient perches.

In this almost-anything-goes town, where, at any hour of the day or night, you can bust your wallet at the craps tables, ply yourself full of free casino drinks and possibly even see ladies of the evening come-hithering on the street corners, it may soon be illegal to feed the birds. Toss that sea gull a crackerjack? Throw stale bread crusts to pigeons? It could cost you $15. In what appears to be a national first, Atlantic City's City Council turned its mighty municipal muscle on those gluttonous gulls yesterday and voted 4-3 to outlaw feeding the birds on the beach and the Boardwalk.

OCEAN CITY, N.J. - The $400 million Ninth Street Bridge opened to much acclaim in May but has since taken a deadly toll on a familiar Shore citizen: The seagull. The birds are dying by the dozen on the bridge after perching on a railing near a new fishing pier, likely because of winds that draw them crashing down into traffic after they take off for the pier, according to the Ocean City Humane Society. Since July 1, 38 herring gulls have been removed from the shoulder of the northbound lanes headed out of Ocean City on the Route 52 Causeway, said Bill Hollingsworth, executive director of the society.

Gulls take off into yesterday's fog from a largely obscured Cooper River Park in Pennsauken. After today's patchy fog, rain and drizzle, with a high of 56, sun is expected to return tomorrow.

Gulls make their way around the thin layer of ice still covering the Schuylkill RIver near Boathouse Row. The ice is only going to get thinner as temperatures are expected to rise into the 60s by midweek.

OCEAN CITY, N.J. - The $400 million Ninth Street Bridge opened to much acclaim in May but has since taken a deadly toll on a familiar Shore citizen: The seagull. The birds are dying by the dozen on the bridge after perching on a railing near a new fishing pier, likely because of winds that draw them crashing down into traffic after they take off for the pier, according to the Ocean City Humane Society. Since July 1, 38 herring gulls have been removed from the shoulder of the northbound lanes headed out of Ocean City on the Route 52 Causeway, said Bill Hollingsworth, executive director of the society.

OCEAN CITY, N.J. - The $400 million Ninth Street Bridge opened to much acclaim in May but has since taken a deadly toll on a familiar Shore citizen: The seagull. The birds are dying by the dozen on the bridge after perching on a railing near a new fishing pier, likely because of winds that draw them crashing down into traffic after they take off for the pier, according to the Ocean City Humane Society. Since July 1, 38 herring gulls have been removed from the shoulder of the northbound lanes headed out of Ocean City on the Route 52 Causeway, said Bill Hollingsworth, executive director of the society.

BACK BEHIND Avalon and Stone Harbor, they no doubt conspire to swoop down on your 8-year-old's beachside lunch, spiriting her peanut-butter sandwich away and squawking like the Mad Hatter in its theft. The high marshes just west of Seven Mile Island, which comprises those two tony towns of Avalon and Stone Harbor, are the world's largest nesting place for laughing gulls, and as the masses come to the beaches, the gulls flit back and forth between the beaches and those marshes. "They are probably the state bird of South Jersey, if you can split south and north that way," said Don Freiday, director of birding programs at the Cape May Bird Observatory.

A longshoreman plans to appeal a judge's verdict convicting him of killing 189 seagulls with a pickup truck at a South Philadelphia pier and fining him $75 for each dead bird - $14,175. Daniel Gallagher, 50, could have been fined $47,800 yesterday, but Municipal Court Judge Deborah Shelton Griffin rejected a prosecution request to do so, saying she believed the slaughter at the Packer Marine Terminal was an accident. But accident or not, Griffin said the law gave her no leeway because the prosecution did not have to prove willfulness or intent to win its case.

The NCAA Division III men's lacrosse title was on the line, and the game was tied with less than six seconds remaining yesterday. That's when Salisbury's Chris Phillips created an opportunity for himself. The Sea Gulls had killed the better part of two minutes, probing the Middlebury defense and hoping to catch the Panthers off guard. Slipping inside with the ball, the Penncrest High graduate whipped a shot past Middlebury goalie Alex Palmisano, and Salisbury had clinched another championship with an 11-10 victory.

Call it the flight of the Pennsylvanians to the Jersey Shore, the laughing gulls to the Atlantic, the red knots to the Delaware Bay, and the turtles to the salt marshes. As the Memorial Day weekend begins - they're all back. An estimated half-million people will travel to the Jersey Shore over the next three days. Tens of thousands of shore birds, marine mammals, and other species will also make their way to a spot that naturalists consider among the most ecologically diverse on the planet.

Gulls make their way around the thin layer of ice still covering the Schuylkill RIver near Boathouse Row. The ice is only going to get thinner as temperatures are expected to rise into the 60s by midweek.

For the bulk of the summer, the only wails we could hear at the Shore were those of obnoxious laughing gulls. Those mid-sized buggers with the black heads and the pointy beaks hover overhead, waiting for that vital moment when they can swoop down and peck at that carefully constructed hoagie you unsuspectingly brought to the beach. When they miss, they look you straight in the eye and let out with a "Waaaaaaalk! Ptaaaaaalk!" Still, even when they miss, the laughing gulls know something we try to put out of our heads and that is this: On Labor Day, they get their beach back.

We'll have Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island . . . phew! - Apologies to Rodgers & Hart Its critics have spoken, and one of New York's longest-running shows is reaching the end of the line. No, it's not Cats. Call this one Rats, or maybe Buoys and Gulls, or, as the marquee reads, Fresh Kills Landfill. As of yesterday, New York has begun a four-year plan to close the last landfill in the five boroughs and the largest city dump in the nation. Fresh Kills has been panned since its premiere in 1948, setting off a veritable chorus line of boos from politicians and Staten Island neighbors.