A mysterious 10-year vandalism spree in a small Ontario town has finally been solved, thanks to a wildlife camera that caught the pecking perpetrators red-handed.
Residents along a rural road in Minden, Ont., say they couldn’t figure out how the address sign at the end of their driveways were always getting damaged.
The county of Haliburton has been replacing approximately 100 signs a year for the last 10 years. Haliburton engineer Roy Haig says the manufacturer did numerous tests and no other county was having this issue.
“We had no explanation and it seemed like everywhere we went in the county, we would run into it,” Haig told CTV Barrie. “Some spots were hotter than others … but it was all over the county.”
Homeowner Barbara Smyk said when she was driving by her property one day, she noticed half her sign was gone.
“I said, ‘Geez, the sun is really doing a number on the signs here,’” Smyk recalled. “I knew for sure that the paint would eventually peel off but I didn’t think it would be that quickly.”
A wildlife camera appears to have solved the mystery.
After a homeowner spotted Blue Jays pecking at a sign, the county installed a wildlife camera which snapped images of the vandals in action.
“They were pecking the numbers off and the backing off the blades,” Haig said. “And some blades, they would strip clean, right down to the metal.”
Even with photographic evidence, Smyk had a hard time believing it.
“That’s a big surprise,” she said, laughing. “How about that, Mother Nature, eh?”
But there’s a serious expense associated with this case of quirky animal behaviour.
The damage has become quite costly. In 2014, the county had to replace 1,600 signs, at a cost of $23,000, sending the 911 services department over budget.
“We have to replace these things because it is a health and safety problem,” Haig said.
The county consulted with a naturalist about the matter, but even he was stumped.
“We did our own investigation with different types of materials, colours, reflectivity – it just didn’t have any impact at all on the birds, they would attack them anyway.”
Finally, they settled on a pecking-proof solution: Specially designed Plexiglas covers that birds can’t damage.
But the county is only going to cover the cost of the damaged signs once, which is why it’s encouraging residents to purchase the protective covers.
If a sign has to be replaced again, the homeowner will be expected to foot the bill at a price tag of $30.
