Two Washington police officers were placed on leave for allegedly doing something that apparently government workers have been doing regularly for many years; clubbing seagulls to death at ferry terminals.

The Seattle Times newspaper reported that federal wildlife agents have been routinely killing the birds at the ferry terminal for the past decade. They either gas them or shoot them with air rifles.

The assistant director of the US Department of Agriculture’s wildlife service program commented on the allegations. He stated that the birds are usually killed discreetly and quietly at night to avoid offending anyone.

The USDA is contracted to remove birds that are a particular threat to health and safety, but few birds are found to meet the standards of the threat.

The killings were said to have begun after an employee at the ferry docks contracted psittacosis. Psittacosis is a disease that you get from bird droppings.

It is said that the federal bird-killers tour ferry docks statewide every few weeks looking for birds to exterminate. Nests are removed by hands, with juvenile birds typically gassed with carbon dioxide in a chamber the size of a microwave oven. Adults are hunted with pellet guns. Both these methods are approved by the USDA.