A flurry of recent attacks on people by usually-docile red-footed boobies has much of Blacktip Island on edge this week. (photo courtesy of Peter Wilton)
Blacktip Islanders this week are taking steps to safeguard themselves from attacks by protected red-footed booby birds along the small Caribbean island’s northwest coast road, authorities said.
“We don’t know why yet, but boobies along that stretch of road by the Booby Preserve have been swooping down and pecking at people’s heads,” Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette said. “It started with runners, then bicyclists and now casual walkers. Boobies are usually quite docile. I’ve never seen anything like this.
“We’re cautioning the public to avoid that section of the island, if possible,” Marquette said. “If you have to go up there, please wear a helmet and protective eye wear. We’ll get this sorted out, but until then, we ask people to use common sense. If that’s possible on this island.”
Experts offered varied explanations for the attacks.
“One school of thought is it’s nesting season and the boobies are protecting their young,” Blacktip Island Birding Society President Hoot Parrett said. “But they nest every year, and this’s never happened. We’re also researching the effects the current wave of extreme heat has on seabirds. The scorching hot weather may be making them more aggressive.”
Others see the attacks as part of a more ominous trend.
“Those boobies’ve been pushing their range for a while,” Peachy Bottoms said. “Used to be, they’d only nest on the far side of the booby pond, away from the road. Lately, though, there’s more and more of them nesting on this side. It’s pretty clear they’re expanding their territory, and are now protecting it.
“This is the problem with declaring them a protected species, and all that land being a booby preserve,” Bottoms said. “Their population’s grown too big for that parcel, and now they’re staking claim to more and more of the island. This keeps up, Blacktip won’t be livable. Conservation’s all fun and games until it turns into a Hitchcock movie.”
Some residents vowed to fight back.
“They’re a protected species until they try to peck my eye out,” Christina Mojarra said. “Then it’s game-on. I take a tennis racket with me when I walk up that way. Any of those suckers swoop at me, they’ll get strained through cat gut.
“We need to go on the offensive, big picture,” Mojarra said. “Cut down all the trees on this side of the pond, force the boobies back across the water. They’ve got to learn, having a protected sanctuary’s a right, not a privilege.”
Others, however, welcomed the attacks.
“I go up that way on purpose all the time,” Gage Hoase said. “If one of them kills me, that guarantees my tombstone will read, ‘Attacked by Boobies.’”
The Blacktip Times 