by Joe Cantlupe
Human lifestyles occasionally clash with wildlife instincts in community associations. Safety guidelines, educational programs, and outside experts resolve most creature conflicts.
Some of the most scenic community associations in the U.S., often those that touch the ocean or gorgeous countryside, can count wildlife as one of their unique draws, but there can be trouble in paradise too.
Alligators sometimes bask in the sun’s rays on a driveway or wander into an open garage. Vultures pluck at windshield wipers and deposit heavy droppings. Deer crash into cars. Wild peacocks damage roofs and make loud screeching sounds.
Community associations new and old are balancing human lifestyles with wildlife instincts, wrestling with the impact of living alongside each other, and weighing resident concerns with efforts to preserve the natural environment.
The Seabrook Island Property Owners Association in Johns Island, S.C., is teeming with wildlife. Located 23 miles south of Charleston, the community includes 3.5 miles of beach, some areas of which are protected migratory bird habitat. Seabrook bills itself as one of the few places in the U.S. where dolphins strand feed for fish. Alligators, armadillos, bobcats, coyotes, fish,foxes, raccoons, otters, opossums, turkeys, turtles, snakes, and white-tailed deer also call the community home.
“The natural environment, including the wildlife that inhabits it, is an essential part of Seabrook Island,” says Heather Paton, CMCA, AMS, LSM, PCAM, executive director of the community of more than 2,300 homeowners. “Conflicts between wildlife and humans are inevitable. We strive for balance and have developed programs to achieve that. Typically, our most urgent responses are to alligators. For safety, warning signs are posted at lagoons.”
Across the country, community associations are developing safety guidelines and strengthening their education programs.
“Wildlife issues tend to be hard to talk about generally because there are so many types of animals with their own problems—alligators threatening people and pets, bears foraging for food, feral pigs or boars on golf courses, deer that are so plentiful it’s hard to avoid hitting them with cars, geese causing a mess, and so on,” says Jim Slaughter, an attorney with Law Firm Carolinas in Greensboro, N.C. “Depending on the type of animal, keep in mind that these issues can be very politically charged.”
Slaughter, a fellow in CAI’s College of Community Association Lawyers, recalls one community that was experiencing a “shockingly high” number of cars striking deer. When the board announced that it was preparing to cull the deer population, there were calls for the board to be recalled or to resign, he says.
While there is no hard data on whether conflicts with wildlife are becoming more prevalent, the general sense is that there has been an uptick. Roughly 4,000 new homeowners associations and condominiums are built each year. There are around 355,000community associations in the U.S. as of 2020, according to estimates from the Foundation for Community Association Research.
Slaughter points to the locations of new communities as a driver behind the potential increase. “Communities are being built in what was next to or in nature,” he says. “Moving into wildlife and then saying, ‘Let’s get rid of all the wildlife,’ is neither practical nor appropriate.”
Circumstances and options for resolving conflict with wildlife will vary, Slaughter says. Laws differ in states, and some animals can’t be trapped or moved without a permit.
ROOST RESOLUTION
Some communities have turned to local partnerships to resolve the conflict.
Broadlands Association, a 1,500-acre, 3,800-home community in Ashburn, Va. , was named a Certified Community Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation in 2008 for its efforts providing habitats in backyards and in public areas. Over the years, though, a problem began roosting.
A large brood of vultures, as many as 600 at a time, started settling on roofs at night, causing extensive damage to property, says Sarah E. Gerstein, CMCA, AMS, PCAM, general manager of the large-scale community. The vultures pulled up shingles, scratched paint on cars, broke windshield wipers, and had “repugnant vomit.”
“It got pretty controversial,” says Gerstein. “They are intimidating. For a huge number of people, this was a big issue impacting their daily lives, waking us up in the morning or in the middle of the night.”
Broadlands realized they couldn’t deal with it on their own because both black and turkey vultures are federally protected underthe Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Gerstein says. It is illegal to kill, poison, injure, or otherwise harm the birds. Vultures perform highly beneficial work in nature’s food chain, cleaning up dead and decaying roadkill and animals that have passed naturally.
The community worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and Loudoun County Public Schools to contract with wildlife specialists to provide roost dispersal for seven consecutive days. The techniques included pyrotechnics, bottle rocks, and the hanging of effigies (deceased vultures) near nesting spots. Within a week, the vultures moved on from the community.
In Northern California, a community managed by Common Interest Management Services in Danville, has been dealing with another type of destructive bird: wild peacocks.
“They get on people’s roofs and try to eat bugs, damaging the roofs,” says Adrianne Bretao, CMCA, AMS, PCAM, senior vice president of the management company, which oversees about 600 communities. “Plus, they are loud and annoying.”
The advice for homeowners: Make your home and landscape less attractive to them. “Keep your roofs clean. Keep your landscape clean. Don’t leave the cat food out,” says Bretao. “People ask, ‘What is the community doing about this?’ It’s like trying to prevent rain.”
In Clearwater, Fla., a couple of years ago, the Greenbriar Club Neighborhood Association made the local news when one resident (or more) wielded a bow and arrow and occasionally shot at peacocks with an air rifle. Sometimes, there were close calls for humans, says Ruth Blondell, president of the 55-and-older community of 837 single-family homes and 54 condominiums.
“There have been complaints about the peacocks, but some people have loved them. Some have trapped them on their own. The HOA remained neutral, but when somebody starts shooting peacocks, it becomes more of a public problem, says Blondell, who was among the Greenbriar residents nearly struck by a shot from an air rifle.
The community had initiated efforts to thwart shootings of the invasive species, but plans have been detoured during theCOVID-19 pandemic. “We were getting proactive and then COVID came,” she says. “We’re going to try to be proactive again.”
“Conflicts between wildlife and humans are inevitable. We strive for balance and have developed programs to achieve that.”
LIVING TOGETHER
Despite the conflict and emotion, community association officials stress the need to maintain the natural environment and protect wildlife.
Seabrook Island continually monitors the environment with conservation measures and keeps watch over new homes being constructed, says Paton.
The community’s architectural review standards include a provision that every property maintains a “wildlife corridor.” In that corridor, there is a minimum 10-foot-wide natural vegetated area between properties. To protect loggerhead turtle nesting sites, there is a “lights-out” requirement on beachfront properties as well as a requirement for dark sky-compliant light fixtures throughout the island.
Seabrook also has a comprehensive deer management program to control the population and the health of the herd. For two months each fall, a naturalist conducts a multi-day deer survey. The environmental committee reviews the data and the program recommendations and determines how many deer—if any—will be culled during the winter.
The recommendations must be approved by the community board, and a state permit also is required. In 2019, 50 deer were removed. The deer meat was packaged and donated to local food banks.
At the more than 4,500-home Suntree Homeowners Association, located in Brevard County, Fla., one of the benefits of living there is what the community describes as “the access to nature and all of its creatures.” And there are plenty of them: wild hogs, alligators, coyotes, gopher tortoises, eagles, ospreys, hawks, owls, vultures, ducks, snakes, bobcats, raccoons, honeybees, and bats.
With the significant presence of wildlife and concerns among some residents about safety, the board issued a wildlife coexistence policies mission statement. The community follows coexistence and management information from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The idea is that “creatures deemed dangerous to humans or pets could likely be avoided rather than trapped and killed,” according to the statement.
Suntree’s initiative was inspired by the dozens of calls the management office received monthly about a particular species. The community placed all of the information and appropriate solutions into a guide that can be passed along quickly to homeowners.
The animal activists and wildlife lovers applauded the move. “Some residents have an uneducated fear of animals, and it seems that this was the best solution to give our residents the tools they need to answer their questions,” says the community’s general manager, who wished to remain anonymous.
Suntree gently reminds residents about the importance of wildlife and the significance of coexistence.
“The underlying goal is that eradication isn’t the preferred method (related to certain wildlife), but coexistence is,” says the manager. “If people change their behavior, they are not going to have an issue with wildlife at Suntree. Many of the transplants to Florida come with a natural fear of wildlife. If you don’t mess with an alligator, there’s no chance you will be harmed.”
Several years ago, a coyote killed a dog at Suntree, but that was the only occasion when wildlife has harmed an animal or person, as far as the manager could recall.
ADVISE, WARN, CONTROL
Attorney Slaughter recalls dealing with a community association board flummoxed about too many deer in the community.
“The first board suggestion was that several board members who were hunters could go out and shoot the deer, even though there were nearby playgrounds,” Slaughter recalls. His reaction? “No, no, and no.”
After a healthy amount of advice, out-of- state professionals were brought in with a plan and lots of liability insurance.
For most associations that have concerns about wildlife, the options fall into categories: advise owners; warn owners and guests through signs and postings; and take control of the situation, Slaughter says. “The appropriate option will depend on many factors: what’s the issue; what kind of animal is it; and where’s the problem.”
For newcomers and longtime residents, education helps.
The Highlands Ranch Community Association in Highlands Ranch, Colo., is home to 100,830 residents, more than 31,000homes, and an abundance of wildlife— everything you would find in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains: elk, deer, mountain lions, turkeys, bobcats, coyotes, and more. Most of the complaints the community receives about wildlife is when a creature ventures into the neighborhoods or other developed areas.
Trail users frequently see the wildlife, but that’s true of any open space area along the Front Range of the Rockies. “The backcountry is a conservation area, and we work to educate everyone that they should expect to see wildlife (there),” says Jerry Flannery, CEO and general manager of Highlands Ranch.
Access to areas of the backcountry outside of the Highlands Ranch trail system is only available through the community’s programs and activities. Those adventures are always guided.
At Seabrook Island, educational programs are focused on the beauty of the environment, and the creatures that inhabit it. Among them is a dolphin education program and a bobcat guardian program. There also are special interest groups such as the Seabrook Island Natural History Group, the Seabrook Island Birders, and the Seabrook Island Turtle Project.
Such programs are “essential” and part of “appreciating the beauty of our environment,” Paton says.
Joe Cantlupe is a freelance writer in the Washing, DC area. Originally published in the November/December 2021 edition of CAI’s Common Ground Magazine. Reprinted with permission.