Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Charleston Turkey Buzzards?

Here's an curious tale from early Charleston history by Ray Cox:

In the 1700-1800’s there were food markets and a slaughter house in these buildings. Sanitation became a real concern. The mayor at the time decided that importing a bunch of Turkey Buzzards to eat the entrails and meat scraps would solve the sanitation problem---so that is exactly what Charleston did. They brought a large flock of Turkey Buzzards from Ohio and released them in the city. As planned, the birds went right to work gobbling up the meat scraps. But, without any natural enemies the birds multiplied and ate so much they became fat and couldn’t really even fly any longer. People would kick the buzzards or even kill them to get them off their property and out of the way. Wanting to keep up with their sanitation plan, Charleston passed a law protecting the buzzards----but people tended to ignore the law. So, the mayor changed the name of the bird to the 'Charleston Majestic Eagle'---and people left the birds with the majestic name alone! The bird’s demise came during the hurricane of 1911 when the whole flock was blown far out to sea and never returned. Quite a story.

Interesting. Ray also has lots of pix of his recent tour of the Holy City, worth checking out!