Stop scaring starlings; get rid of them

It might have been entertaining for some folks to watch West Cape Rock Drive's recent neighborhood attempt to rid itself of starlings. But probably not to residents of the neighborhood.

Cape Girardeau's animal control officer, Aaron Baughn, manned the propane cannons at dusk, firing off loud booms. Residents were directed to run around in their yards pushing lawnmowers, yelling, banging pots and pans or doing anything else to startle the birds.

Nobody wants starlings in the neighborhood. They're loud, they stink and they are all-around nuisances.

Thus the problem with the city's plan. The starlings, when scared off from West Cape Rock Drive, will settle in another inviting place. And just about anywhere makes a good habitat for the birds.

Here's a better plan: Starlings aren't native to this continent. A hundred of them were brought from Europe and released in 1890 in New York City's Central Park by some numbskull.

The city should do what the U.S. Department of Agriculture did on the Siemers farm in Cape Girardeau County when starlings started fouling the cattle feed:

Poison them until they're gone and stop pushing the problem from place to place.