BEND - Roughly 15,000 starlings were recently poisoned in an effort to reduce what many consider to be a nuisance species.

Officials from Wildlife Services, an animal control unit of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, mixed a bird poison with corn, said Dave Williams, state director of the department.

Some of the birds who ingested the poison flew about 10 miles from the Knott Landfill in southeast Bend to the Old Mill District. Starling carcasses were found in the wetlands along the Deschutes River.

Starlings are not protected by the Migratory Bird Act and receive no special protection, said Chris Carey, wildlife biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Deschutes County officials, who oversee operation of the Knott Landfill, acknowledged a starling problem in 1999. Since then, they have contracted annually with Wildlife Services to kill the birds when the population expands.

Bob Sallinger, urban conservation director of the Portland chapter of the Audubon Society, said starlings are pests, but poison is not the answer.

He said other species might eat the poison and die. Moreover, he said animals may eat the carcasses of poisoned starlings and accumulate the toxin in their system.

"There are a lot of animals that will eat the carcasses, and we dispute the claim that the poison can't be passed on through the food chain," Sallinger said.

Williams said the poison does not accumulate within birds' nervous systems or body tissue. Instead, the birds eat and absorb the poison, which slows their circulation system.

Once the poison gets into their bloodstream, the birds excrete what's left, and that's not toxic to other living beings, Williams said.

The birds die about 12 to 36 hours after eating the poison.

Sallinger, from the Audubon Society, said that raises an ethical question - "to give an animal a poison that takes so long to work."