Santa Stolen from Hamilton Harbour

[Steve]

I didn't see it up, but it sounds like a GREAT IDEA!!!!

 

http://www.thespec.com/News/article/208394

 

 

 

Mac researchers on the hunt for Santa of Hamilton harbour

 

June 15, 2007

It’s a strange thing to do in mid-June. But a group of McMaster researchers desperately wants to find Santa Claus.

That’s right, Saint Nick. And believe it or not, it’s all in the name of science.

It started six weeks ago when the researchers discovered a disturbing development in Hamilton Harbour. Cormorants were starting to take over nesting areas of the bay.

They were pushing out native herring gulls and making an awful mess of the shoreline.

The scientists needed to somehow drive the bad birds away and encourage the good ones to stay.

That’s where Santa comes in.

You see for $99 at Canadian Tire, you can buy a life-sized mechanical Santa lawn ornament that sings and dances when its motion detector goes off. Cormorants are apparently bothered by this. And herring gulls aren’t.

At least that’s what the scientists hypothesized.

So one day in May they outfitted Santa in a raincoat (so he wouldn’t get covered by a white Christmas of guano) and a construction helmet (so the birds couldn’t peck his head off) and put him in the middle of a small man-made island off the Beach Strip near the Canada Centre for Inland Waters. They used a car battery for power.

When birds swooped by he’d start singing Jingle Bells. The cormorants would take off. But the gulls were undeterred. They laid eggs and raised families.

The scientists were ecstatic. “We went from seven nesting herring gulls to 51,” says McMaster biologist shorebird expert Jim Quinn.

But then one day last week the unthinkable happened – Santa Claus disappeared.

Someone must have slipped over to the island and kidnapped him. Quinn thinks it might be a confused naturalist who thinks Santa was bad for the birds – not appreciating the nuance of his good bird/bad bird mission.

Quinn also acknowledges it could have been pranksters looking for an out-of-season conversation piece.

But if you see one slightly weathered Santa Claus in a guano-covered raincoat, give Quinn a call at 905-525-9140 (23194). He’d love to hear from you. His jolly bird experiment isn’t over yet.

[joonmoon]

What an awesome idea, lets all chip in and get more of them and place them where they are needed most...anywhere there are those nasty dirty birds (Cormorants). I'm sure we've all seen them on our favourite lakes. Scare santas...lol. What a find.

[charlied]

man they will steal just about anything in Hamilton.....LOL

[pikehunter]

I saw that on the northernmost island. I thought at first it was a real person out there doing some sort of tests or research. The next day he was there again! OK so I figured it was a scarecrow to keep the birds away.

 

Thanks to your post we all know that it was a mechanical Santa! Great idea! Love it. Too bad some fool had to go and take it away

 

I was past there one day and the gulls were all over the island and the cormorants were standing all along the edge looking into the island's centre, I got the impression that they were starting to get brave and accustomed to the Santa.

 

So now he's gone...here's another theory, maybe the weather just got too warm and he hitched a ride to the North Pole