Vultures vex Everglades visitors

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EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, Fla., Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Park rangers in the Florida Everglades are offering visitors loaner bungee cords and tarps to protect their cars from marauding vultures.

The big black birds apparently have a taste for automotive rubber, including window seals and wiper blades, and have been known to strip a parked car clean in a matter of hours.

"Exactly why they do it or when they do it or why they choose one vehicle over another, any reasons for that are pretty much unknown," Skip Snow, a park biologist, told The Miami Herald.

Black vultures fly into the Everglades every winter, but their penchant for parked cars makes they atypical snow birds. Park officials have tried to shoo them away from parking lots with loud noises and water hoses.