Vultures in the Everglades - birds known primarily for dining on the dead and decaying - have developed an appetite for something unusual: Car parts.

Windshield wipers, door seals and - especially scrumptious - sunroof seals. Anything rubber, but vinyl will do, too.

The birds, mostly black vultures native to much of the Southeast, have trashed cars and trucks of visitors and the Everglades National Park staff, as well as the occasional boat at Flamingo, an outpost on Florida Bay. The park has received seven complaints and one lawsuit seeking $700 to cover repairs, but most damage goes unreported.

The problem isn't unique. Vultures across the country have munched on cars, roof shingles, pool screens and an array of stuff for reasons that biologists admit remain a mystery. The park has tried several anti-vulture schemes, yelling at birds, even dangling dead ones upside down - a scare-vulture that has worked well in many spots.

In the Everglades, the effigy results were mixed.

"The first few days they had it up there, oooh, it was eerie around here," recalled Linda Hyde, a gift-shop worker who lost a windshield seal on her Ford Explorer to vultures. "The birds and crows were flying around them like crazy."

The macabre sight in a national park also was difficult to explain, particularly to kiddie visitors. With the seasonal vulture populations dwindling, the park took the effigies down last week.

But they could return next winter, along with other anti-vulture measures.

Dave Hallac, chief of biological resources, said the park intends to call in experts from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Wildlife Research Center in Gainesville.

" These birds are native and they're protected," Hallac said. "We're looking for ways, without injuring the birds, because that's not what we do here, to keep them from damaging vehicles."

Scientists can only speculate on the birds' urges, said Michael Avery, a USDA Wildlife Services biologist and one of the nation's top vulture-management experts.

Some park workers think the rubber releases an aroma, possibly from fish oil, that lures the birds. Avery said experiments with various emissions from chemicals used to make the rubber have provided no clear answers.

Source: McClatchy Newspapers