tags: birds, bed and breakfast, investment opportunity
Okay, do any of you want to help make an investment with me? Would you like to buy a house that I would turn in to a bed and breakfast? It is very cheap .. er, affordable .. because of one extra feature it has .. nesting vultures on the premises. Yes, indeed, it would be a fascinating place for bird watchers and nature lovers to visit, and I would love to host them, and I would love to be a proud steward of the black and turkey vultures who nest there (I have a soft place in my heart for vultures, after having met several tame turkey vultures in my life, and discovering that they actually are quite intelligent and inquisitive).
Besides, I could write a book about the vultures!
The house is for sale well below its assessed value, has four bedrooms and sits on more than a half acre of land. It's also got lots of vultures, and that's made it a tough sell.
The trees around the Hopkinton house are a year-round nesting ground for turkey and black vultures. The previous owners blamed the birds for polluting their well, scaring their children and causing various illnesses.
But real estate agent Patrick Murray said he's optimistic it could make a good home for the right buyer. It's listed at $189,900, below the assessed value of $222,800, and Murray is pitching it as a place that could "make an excellent bird-watching bed-and-breakfast establishment." [story].
Anyone who does invest in this property would be able to stay for free, of course. [And yes, I am quite serious about this, if you are!]
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I agree, that would be really cool. I've got â¬3.04 by my desk I could pitch in.
The way the dollar is going, that could cover the price in a couple of months.
Bob
I think that's a marvelous idea! I remember coming upon a flock of them sunning all along a row of fenceposts - wings spread and all of them looking gloriously relaxed and in command of their realm in the sun. It doesn't surprise me to learn of their intelligence. Hope you find some partners and can do it!
they actually are quite intelligent and inquisitive
Yes, especially if they catch you napping in the yard.
Um. I live across the street from a house that is a favorite haunt of vultures, and I feel privileged to have great blue herons and pileated woodpeckers in my own yard. That being said... do you realise what the excrement of extremely large carnivorous birds is like?
You really need to visit the place, without prior arrangement, before investing. I do not find the report of well pollution to be at all unbelievable.
Piscivorous birds might be worse! I work near the Seattle Museum of History and Industry. A large number of double-crested cormorants use the trees along the nearby Montlake Cut as a roost, and the smell near those trees is, well, interesting. I know a number of folks who spend their summers in Alaska doing research in bird or seal colonies; they do tell me they get used to it. I also know folks who work with marine mammal stranding networks; I've never gotten used to the smell of marine mammals, even the live ones, much less the dead, stranded (rotting) ones.
I suppose I would want to know just how many vultures are around; a couple of pairs on half an acre would be quaint - more than a dozen or so, might indeed be messy.
There are a number of religious sects that use vultures for the final disposition of human remains. I suspect that there are few such suitable places in the greater NY area, and no doubt there is a significant need.
An expert on birds would be the ideal person to run such a facility. Examining the drugs recently administered to the deceased to ensure there were no metabolites toxic to birds would be necessary.
Very modest fees (modest compared to a NY funeral) would be sufficient to pay for the upkeep. As a religious site, no doubt there would be tax and zoning advantages. The fees might even be sufficient to expand and have additional nesting sites nearby. I don't know how teritorial vultures are, but if there is sufficient food, no doubt they could tolerate large numbers.
Apparently Native Americans practiced this too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial