IT WAS dangerous but if the vultures of Leesburg, north Virginia, were on the rampage, the story had to be covered. The first reports were grim.
The Washington Post told it like it was. "After six years of using air horns, balloons, firecrackers and even light cannons in a losing battle against a growing horde of messy vultures, the people of Leesburg have called for federal reinforcements."
And it got worse. A local couple Jan and Don Ashbaugh, tried rubber snakes, mothballs and fake owls to drive away the 75 vultures perched on the pine trees in their back garden.
"I really did think they were going to swoop down and get my two-year-old nephew," Jan said. So they cut down the four biggest trees.
It worked for a year, but last Halloween the naked-headed turkey and black-headed vultures were back and perched on the smaller trees. "We faked them out for one year, but they figured it out and brought back their friends," Don Ashbaugh said resignedly.
So it was time to head for Leesburg. "We're going after those vultures," we told The Irish Times Foreign Desk. It was Sunday and the sun shone as we turned off the beltway onto Highway Seven and the 15-mile stretch to Vulture Town.
Suddenly we saw one wheeling ominously overhead. God, they're big - 6-ft wing span.
We admired Martin Lowney, the hero from the US Department of Agriculture who has vowed to free Leesburg and its 10,000 inhabitants from their unwelcome guests. He will set up a room-size trap, bait it with dead deer and wait.
When they come, he'll put on a raincoat, wade into the cage, grab a vulture and put it in a small cage. About a week and $8,000 later, he will have all the scavengers run out of town and trucked to a rural area about 200 miles away in south Virginia. If he lives to tell the tale of course.
The raincoat is his only protection. "I'll be putting on a raincoat to pick them up," he said, as the vultures tended "to throw up on you when they get excited".
Vulture vomit? Sounds worse than nerve gas.
Martin Lowney faces other hazards which the people of Leesburg have learned to dread. Vultures urinate on their legs to cool themselves and their other droppings can make life hell. "They're just a pain in the rear," says Mayor James Clem, who has about 200 vultures roosting in his back yard.
It was time for the raincoat and the notebook. We tried the cemetery first but these buzzards were too cunning to fall for that one. A local resident walking her dog there recalled how she and her daughter and dogs were once followed by about 100 vultures. Her main worry was that they might "want to go to the bathroom".
She once saw a wounded vulture in her yard being attacked by crows and called the vet. "Go out and bring it into the house," he told her. Assured by the vet that it would not attack her, the woman put a coat around it and brought it in, finding that the vulture was more scared than she was.
OK, this was a friendly vulture, but he was hurt. The rest of them perch on the branches and are not nice even if they are federally protected and cannot be shot.
They'll move on from Leesburg when the deer season is over, but that's six weeks away. Meanwhile, Martin Lowney has a job to do and good luck to him.
. A 3-year-old Californian girl suffered face and neck wounds when she was mauled by a coyote in the back garden of a house on Monday, police said. Lauren Bridges was playing in the snow in South Lake Tahoe, a town 180 miles east of San Francisco, when the attack happened.
The girl's father, Mr Steve Bridges, who was inside the house, heard screaming from the background. Looking out of the window, he saw his daughter being swung around by the coyote, a police statement said. He ran outside and grabbed the coyote by the neck.