February 6, 2026
Here is what you need to know:
Woodpeckers are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) of 1918, which is federal law in the United States. It’s illegal to kill, capture, or harm woodpeckers. It’s also illegal to disturb their nests, eggs, or young. Violating the MBTA can result in fines up to $15,000 and/or six months imprisonment for individuals.
What This Means:
You can legally use non-lethal deterrents (visual deterrents, noise makers, netting, reflective tape). Repair damage they cause to your property. Take preventive measures to discourage them.
You cannot legally shoot, trap, or kill them. Destroy active nests. Use poison or harmful chemicals.
I’m looking at that $15,000 fine and consider it a bargain.
Michael and I have been, and continue to be, battle-hardened soldiers in the woodpecker wars. Everyone knows that fighting a war is difficult, everyone also knows that fighting a on two-fronts is exceedingly difficult.
The first battle front opened at our home in the mountains. We were absent for three months during which Russian troops….errr…sorry, woodpeckers, invaded the property. Woodpeckers peck because they sense termites in the wood (chicken nuggets to them), they peck because the sound is a mating call, they peck to create nests. They peck to seek your personal bankruptcy, is my take on it.
Please send the children out of the room. It cost us $6,000 to remediate the damage they caused. But but but…how is $15,000 a bargain?
Well, while we were in the Smoky Mountains, a group of Chechen terror squads…errr…woodpeckers, invaded our home in Florida. Yes, working in close communication, the NC Division signaled the FL Division to attack! Our home is stucco, concrete and so forth, but the third story is built of wood under stucco to lighten the load on the foundations along the ocean.
We have a painter. His name is Nick. He’s a Brit, and no one lifts a paint brush to the Florida house if it’s not Nick. Nick gently informed us that we’d need to move in a “picker’ one of those pieces of equipment that can extend a hundred feet into the air, so that he might have a working platform. First, to seal the five holes they put in the house, and then, to apply a bird repellent to the stucco paint.
I asked if we could use high explosives, he sighed, said he understood, but that, well, no.
I bet you’ve always wondered what it costs to put a great painter, on a three-story picker, a machine that must be brought in on a flatbed truck, for half a day? The answer is $4,700.
So, lemme see here…$6,000+ $4,700+Anger Management Therapy (still not billed)…$15,000 is a bargain.
OK, so the repairs to the mountain abode took place and we’ve had no further issues. Our guy up there is Scott, he does all our contracting, all good.
But imagine our first thoughts when, we sleepily opened one eye a few days later in Florida after Nick’s departure…and heard a woodpecker pecking on the house.
The sound of a woodpecker pecking is amplified through the concrete into a deafening bang bang bang that sounds something like the Horns of Doom.
Well, the law is clear. Totally completely misguided but clear. Thus began the real war.
First, we installed sonic disruptors. I put on a Star Trek outfit and instead of a phaser, I had electronic boxes that emit, to a woodpecker, an ear-splitting disruptive sound. Silent to human ears, perfect.
Except then one stood on one of them to get a better angle on the stucco he was drilling through.
Next, a thingy that emits a flashing high intensity light, “guaranteed” to disrupt and put off woodpeckers. Sure. Until we saw one using the light as her woodpecker make-up light. It’s bad enough, the war, but to then have to put up with woodpecker versions of trashing talking is more than we should bear. I mean in the NFL, taunting gets you 15 yards. In the woodpecker wars, it gets you mad.
Next up, the flashing metal thingies. You hang a bunch of them where the woodpeckers roam, they reputedly hate them, and they go away. And, for three days, it worked! But then, the Horns of Doom reappeared.
You know, you get to a point where you just don’t care. You don’t care what it will cost, you don’t care how many lives will be sacrificed, you don’t care if you clog the roads leading out of town with refugee families carrying pitiful piles of clothing. There is no quarter asked nor given. The bloodlust just takes over.
You are thinking at this point, we’re just going to shoot the things and take our chances. We are encouraged by this response to the AI inquiry we made:
“Only one documented case: In 2015, a Wisconsin pest control company owner was fined $4,185 and pled guilty to state violations for illegally killing 108 woodpeckers for approximately 30 customers. This demonstrates that prosecutions do happen, but cases seem relatively rare.”
Michael and I discuss the pros and cons. I’m willing to spend a year in the Big House to protect our home, but no longer than that. Michael, ever clear thinking says, “I think you could draw two years and they’d let you out after one for good behavior.” I was willing to take the chance. Woodpecker homicide seemed doable.
Well, then, cooler heads prevailed, so we have now gone to the nuclear option. Yes, the nerf pistol.
It’s used for the nerf bullet equivalent to paintball. Everyone puts on goggles and armed with nerf pistols, you play Call of Duty or whatever. Obviously not lethal, the hope here is that one cooly placed shot could create a kind of demilitarized zone around the house…”Don’t go there, they’re crazy.”
Now I can tell you when I shoot a pistol, when I squeeze the trigger, I tend to pull the barrel to the left. This is normally no big deal, part of the practice routine. But…
I get a clear shot from the third-floor balcony overlooking the neighborhood. I am literally vibrating with excitement. I sight carefully, pull the trigger and…and…and…fire left by five inches. Not only pulling the barrel to the left, but also, I didn’t account for the wind. Nerf bullets, being just a piece of nerf, are not aerodynamic and waffle in the wind.
Florida has no state income tax but at this moment, I’m thinking that’s not enough compensation for what I’m going through.
You wait for the pecking. They always show up around 8am, so it’s not like you wait out the day there. Personally, I think it’s when the satellite is over the house to give them clear geo-positioning direction, but Michael thinks I’m in a dark place, mentally and imagining that.
No matter, I get a second clear shot three days later. I aim, squinting through the nerf sight, just whack him in the side and he won’t return. I pull the trigger, nothing happens.
I left the safety on.
You don’t get a second chance. Your audible exasperations and expletive deleteds scare him off. And then, cat and mouse starts all over again.
We are locked in what we feel is an eternal war against the birds and the EPA and the planet. Everything is conspiring against us. But all wars have an eventual end, and we’ll keep you posted.
I read yesterday you can put up netting and that takes away their footing, but then, the Property Owners Association might not approve. So what?
They’re not the war crimes tribunal at the Hague.
After all, this is war.
Thoughts, questions, or reflections? I’d love to hear them. You can reach me anytime at anthony@workingprofit.com
