Projo Offbeat Blog

It will take more than a fishing net to protect us from the seagulls -- and the satellite.

In Atlantic City, N.J., business leaders have abandoned the idea of building a shield to protect Boardwalk diners from hungry seagulls.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals squawked about the plan, which would have erected fishing wire over the Boardwalk to keep the winged scavengers from snatching food off plates.

Considering their past tactics, I wonder if any of the PETA people dressed up as scantily clad gulls to draw attention to the birds' plight.

Still, as pesky as hungry seagulls can be -- one snatched a sandwich from my wife's hand at the beach last summer -- I've found that the real problem isn't so much with what they pick up, but what they drop off. And a wire shield would have done nothing to prevent that.

An even more troubling problem hanging over our heads is news that a large U.S. military satellite is supposed to come crashing back to Earth, probably somewhere in North America, in late February or early March.

The Homeland Security Department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. military are working on the problem. I just hope they come up with something better than a fish-net shield to protect us.

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