by Pigeon Patrol | Nov 7, 2023 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows, UltraSonic Bird Control
TORONTO – A pigeon has been stealing poppies from the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and making a nest out of the flowers in the alcove of a stained glass window.
“Each day the pigeon has been flying down… to steal poppies, carefully crafting a nest in the lead-up to Remembrance Day in an alcove above the stained-glass window of a wounded Australian soldier,” the website for the Australian War Memorial reads.
The poignancy of the bird using the unusual nest materials is not lost on the Memorial’s staff, as the website explores the history of soldiers using pigeons during wartime.
“Between 1942 and 1943, pigeon fanciers across the country gave some 13,500 trained pigeons to the army for signals use purposes,” the website says. “There are lots of stories of pigeons valiantly going forward and saving people’s lives.”
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Nov 7, 2023 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows, UltraSonic Bird Control
Rain gutters are among the most heavily exposed parts of your home. Weather, pests, and constant use affect their integrity. In fact, many animals make gutters their home, given the space and debris that enters it. Specifically, birds often nest in rain gutters for these reasons. Fortunately, here are some effective ways to get rid of birds’ nests in your gutters.
Gutter Guards
The greatest bird deterrent for your yard is a gutter guard. Gutter guards attach to rain gutters to prevent debris and pests from entering. This reduces clogs, cracks, or other issues from constant use. They also prevent birds from nesting. Aluminum guards click into place over your rain gutters with micro-mesh technology that blocks twigs, leaves, or other nesting materials from entering. Birds will fly away into new spots, leaving your gutters clean and nest-free.
Bird Repellent
Similarly, buy bird repellent to ward off these creatures. Like bug spray, bird repellents are chemical sprays or gels designed to disperse large flocks of birds. Many different repellents exist depending on the bird, with goose, pigeon, or other fowl in mind. Eco-repellents also exist and are water-based sprays to avoid harming the birds.
Bird Spikes
While it sounds extreme, bird spikes are perfectly legal and useful in dire situations. Any frustrated homeowner may consider them as a fail-safe last resort. Ultimately, bird spikes are long, needle-like rods that prevent birds from perching, roosting, defecating, or mating. Bird spikes are predominantly used for larger birds, like pigeons, seagulls, or crows, but they can be used for any other birds as well. Still, leaves and other debris can clog bird spikes. Place these horizontally on your gutters to prevent roosting.
Predator Decoys
Birds are simple creatures, meaning bird decoys are one of the best ways to get rid of birds’ nests in your gutters. These are life-sized models of common predators, like hawks and owls. Predator decoys are a humane non-lethal solution for deterring birds. Other deterrents, like holographic tape and scaring balloons, also exist. These products have been shown to work and will scare away any unwanted flying pests.
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Nov 7, 2023 | MBCA, pet bird, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Predators
If you have been driven crazy by incessant scrabbling or are fed up of the mess being left behind by birds nestling in your eaves the question at the fore-front of your mind, is going to be how the hell can I get rid of them?!
The answer in short is that you pretty much can’t, not unless they are causing a health risk and you’re authorised to remove them!
So once a bird has decided to nest, you can’t touch it!
Sorry, I know that’s not exactly what you wanted to read! …..
However, let’s not linger on the negative, what you can do is prevent them nesting in the future. This article shares some of our top tips for making sure you get the right tools in place so that you can sleep soundly during the next nesting season!
Why we cannot remove nests from your properties eaves.
Birds need to nest in order to have their young, and with the loss of their natural homes over the years they have been forced to share our homes and use our roofs to nest. It’s important that whilst we protect your home, we also protect theirs too.
All birds, eggs and their nests are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981. It is an offense to damage or destroy an active nest or prevent parent birds from returning to the nest. Also, there are certain birds such as Owls, Bearded Tits & Golden Eagles who are specified in Schedule 1 of the legal act, outlining that it is an offense to cause disturbance to the birds when they are in or near their nest.
Authorised personnel can remove nests but only when there’s risk to public health, for example if it’s to stop the spread of disease or if there’s a potential risk to the air space. They can also be removed if it’s proven that they are causing ‘serious damage to livestock, foodstuffs for livestock, crops, vegetables, fruit..’according to the RSPB explanation of the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
In order to protect yourself and to ensure you don’t harm the wildlife, you should avoid touching the nest or interfering with the birds at this time.
We know this doesn’t solve your problem, so keep reading to see 4 key steps to prevent birds nesting on your home in future.
The UK is known to have around 600 different bird types, but actually very few will be attracted to your roof space. The most common are :
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House Sparrows
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Starlings
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Swifts
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Swallows
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Blue tits/Great Tits
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Jackdaws
Bird Prevention 4 key steps to stop birds using your property as a nesting ground.
1.Clear debris.
To stop birds being attracted to your home in the first place, ensure all your rubbish is cleared away. Birds see rubbish as materials that they can use to build their nest, so in order to make sure your home doesn’t catch their attention in the first place make sure your bins and lids are secured.
Open rubbish can not only attract birds to your home, but many other pests too!
2.Seal up holes in your roof
It’s important to check your building in the winter, before the birds start nesting for gaps or spaces the birds could use to nest. If you find spaces then make sure to clean them out and seal them up, make sure to do this in the morning to minimise the risk of a bird roosting in them.
For your home it’s recommended using a wire mesh over any holes in your roof to deter them from getting in and nesting. If you have a sealant you may wish to seal up your roof but first make sure that there are no birds left nesting.
3. Prevent birds perching on your guttering and roof
Once you’ve checked your roof is sound and there’s no current nests in your roof, there are precautions you can take to stop birds landing on your roof, the most common being spikes. You often see these spikes on industrial buildings, shops or hospitality establishments roofs.
Now, having spikes on the exterior of your home can sound scary, but they aren’t as obvious as you might first think! The thin metal and clever placement of the spikes means they hard to see – so don’t worry your home won’t end up looking like a warzone!
If you still aren’t keen on having spikes, you could opt for ‘NestDiverters’ which is a discreet, clear, acrylic shield that stops the birds being able to get close to the buildings eaves. They function well and the additional key advantage to this bird proofing technique is that are almost invisible to the eye. Resulting in a quiet nights sleep without altering the look of your home. As listed installers of these products for Scotland, we are able to install them safely for your home.
4. Position a decoy in place.
You could try placing a decoy bird such as a plastic hawk on the roof which will discourage birds from nesting on your property. These model birds act just like a scarecrow, discouraging birds from coming near your property as they will see the hawk as a predator and a potential threat.
A decoy bird is a non-invasive way to discourage birds, the problem is that birds are smart so this will only last for a short period of time- in some cases a matter of days.
5. Repellent gels
Please don’t use these, they are available in the UK, but there is a high risk to the birds and although not poisonous the risk is that bird eyelids can get stuck together. Although their bird song can be annoying at 5am, that is no reason to make a bird suffer. In addition they aren’t proven to work so use your pennies elsewhere!
6. Encourage the birds to change nesting space next year
At the end of your tether? Tried all the suggested precautions and still finding the feathered friends nesting in your roof? You might be panicking thinking there’s nothing you can do, but there is still hope for next year by encouraging the birds to move elsewhere!
A top-tip suggested by the RSPB is to make an ‘artificial nest’. To do this you can simply use an ice cream tub and cut a hole within it. Make sure to roughen the surface and make some drain holes before hanging the tub up.
You can buy bird boxes along with bird feeders, if you place these out early enough near your home, there is a chance that the birds will choose to nest there instead.
In summary
Birds are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981 and so its is unlawful to remove a bird nest once it is occupied. Some nests are only used once, while others are returned to every year.
While it can be frustrating, the best thing you can do as the occupier of the property is to put prevention measures in place for next year. Don’t find yourself in the same situation next year, put a reminder in your calendar at the end of the summer and get your deterrents in place.
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Nov 7, 2023 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, history of pigeons, MBCA, pet bird, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services
There are several species of birds that choose to build their nests around human habitation such as houses and sheds. Sometimes this can look messy and cause problems such as build up of droppings under the nest. We are often asked how to deal with this problem or whether the nest can be moved to another location.
The first thing to do is to find out what species of bird is building the nest. Have a good look at them and see if you can identify the species. Understanding more about the birds themselves may help you accept their presence around your home – you might even find that you have a rare and interesting bird in your garden.
It is very difficult to relocate nests without disturbing birds, so we don’t recommend moving nests unless this can be done before any eggs have been laid. If the birds are still in the process of building the nest then you can destroy the nest and obstruct the area so they cannot build another nest in the same place.
Alternatively, you could let the birds build the nest and live with them until their babies have fledged. It can be fascinating to watch the birds sitting on the nest, the eggs hatch and then the young grow up and fledge. Baby birds grow at a very rapid rate so they will only stay in the nest (and around your home) for a short period of time. The babies then tend to fly away to find their own mates. The parents will often move on to another location as well.
You might then like to make the area less attractive to nesting birds before next spring/summer by putting up wire or blocking access to the area where the nest was.
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Nov 7, 2023 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows, UltraSonic Bird Control
Pigeons like to land, roost, nest, and make a mess of your roof and they’re not easy to get rid of. Persistence, bird deterrents, and bird exclusion is the key.
Get rid of pigeons on the roof by removing food and water
Remove all food and water sources and never feed the pigeons! In addition, don’t let your neighbors feed the pigeons. The pigeons can eat at your neighbors and nest on your roof!
Pigeons mainly like to eat seeds and grains such as oats, wheat, corn, cereal, sorghum, rice, beans, barley, millet, peas, and sunflower. They also like to eat food scraps left behind by people, including bread crumbs and popcorn. Birdseed is their favorite because it contains a variety of seeds and grains.
When grains or seeds aren’t available pigeons will eat fruit, greens, and occasionally insects, earthworms, and snails. They especially like apples, grapes, berries, lettuce, spinach, and sprouted seeds.
Pigeons need a constant water source. If water isn’t readily available they will leave to find a more suitable place to live. They can find water in birdbaths, gutters, pools, decorative water fountains, puddles, ponds, streams, and even leaves after a rain storm.
Easy to use deterrents to get rid of pigeons on the roof
Aluminum foil, bird deterrent tape, shiny Mylar balloons, wind propelled shiny spinning objects, and plastic decoy scare owls are scary objects to pigeons. Place scary objects on the roof, under the eves, or on the patio. Pigeons don’t like or feel comfortable with scary objects next to their nesting area. They would rather live in a more peaceful environment. One thing to remember, when installing scary objects, is to move them around on a regular basis. Objects that stay in one position don’t scare pigeons.
Wind chimes may deter pigeons. You can give it a try. Pigeons have sensitive hearing and the noise from wind chimes can actually hurt their ears. Pigeons don’t particularly like to nest where loud noises come and go.
Sticky bird gel can also deter pigeons. Apply the sticky gel to your roof where the pigeons are landing and roosting. The gel will make the area uncomfortable for the pigeons to roost.
Metal bird spikes to get rid of pigeons on the roof
Metal anti bird perching spikes can be effective in the right circumstance. They can work pretty well depending on the location you put them. Install them on rooftop edges, ledges, chimneys, and anywhere you see the pigeons land, roost, or nest. Metal bird spikes are mostly maintenance free and can be a permanent solution to deter pigeons from your roof.
Metal anti-perching spikes are harder to install and are not aesthetically appealing.
Wire screens or mesh to get rid of pigeons on the roof
Exclusion is the best solution to pigeon problems in alcoves, around chimneys, under solar panels, on vents, and many other places on the roof. Exclusion with wire bird screen and mesh do offer a permanent solution to pigeon nesting problems.
Our affiliate company, deals with pigeons nesting underneath solar panels on a daily basis. Solar panels are generally raised 5-12 inches above shingled or tiled roofs, thus creating a void between the panel and the roof. Pigeons can easily go underneath the panel to nest, poop, and make a noticeable and destructive mess. Most, if not all, rooftops that have solar panels need to have pigeons excluded from getting under the solar panels.
Installing wire bird screens or mesh can be difficult and hazardous. It requires being on the roof with tools, a lot of bending over (which is physically demanding), cutting the wire to the proper dimensions, and stapling or screwing on the wire. It is not advised for a home or business owner to install wire screens or mesh because it isn’t safe. You can fall off the roof and get seriously injured or die. To use this method, please hire a professional bird control company.
Bird netting to get rid of pigeons on the roof
If your roof is large and flat, bird netting is an excellent method to use to keep pigeons off your roof. It physically blocks the birds from the roof. If the birds can’t get on the roof, they can’t roost or nest. Bird netting is an exclusion method primarily used for large commercial bird and pigeon control.
A professional bird control operator should install bird netting. If not installed correctly the pigeons can still land on the area and get trapped, as well as other birds. This is cruel. Please hire a professional bird control company for bird netting. It will cost money but it is the safest and most humane way to have bird netting installed.
Remove bird nesting materials and droppings
It is important to remove all pigeon nesting and feces prior to excluding pigeons. Nesting materials and droppings left on the roof will continue to cause damage.
If the roof has a pitch, using a power washer is generally the best way to get rid of pigeon waste. Put a tarp on the ground next to the roof to catch the debris as it is rinsed off the roof. It will be much easier to clean up the pigeon feces on the ground if it is contained on a tarp. Wear a mask to prevent inhaling fumes from pigeon feces and wet the feces down before rinsing off. Histoplasmosis is zoonotic disease that can be found in pigeon feces. Zoonotic diseases are caused by harmful germs like viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi that are spread between animals and people. (CDC 2017)
If the roof is flat, you will have to wet the roof down (to prevent spreading contaminants and disease through the air), then rake and sweep up the pigeon waste prior to rinsing. Again, wear a mask to prevent inhaling fumes from pigeon feces.
Please be careful or better yet, call a professional. Using a power washer on the roof can be slippery and dangerous. Inhaling noxious pigeon feces can cause disease – it is a biohazard.
Importance of discouraging pigeons from nesting on your roof
Pigeons spread disease. There are over 60 diseases birds and their droppings can carry. Some of the diseases from pigeon droppings include salmonella, toxoplasmosis, cryptococcosis, St Louis encephalitis, E.coli, and more. In addition, fungus can grow in pigeon droppings which can cause histoplasmosis. Histoplasmosis is a respiratory disease that may be fatal. Pigeons are also carriers of pests including fleas, mites, ticks, and lice as well as West Nile virus. All of these diseases can pose a serious threat to human health.
Property damage is a big concern with pigeon nesting and droppings. Nests can clog gutters, ventilation pipes, chimneys, and damage electrical equipment. Damaged electrical wires from pigeon nests can even lead to fires. Pigeon droppings are very acidic. The droppings can actually eat away at the roof structure and cause roof leakage.
Pigeon droppings are unsightly. Nobody likes to see or walk on pigeon droppings.
People can slip and fall where pigeon droppings accumulate. When pigeon feces are fresh or rained on it is slippery.
Call a professional
Installing wire bird spikes, wire screens, wire mesh, or bird netting is difficult and hazardous. People can, and do, fall off roofs. People who fall off roofs get seriously injured and even die. It is best to call a professional bird control company when using these methods. Companies that specialize in removing and excluding bird pests (like pigeons) have the know how and safety equipment to get rid of pigeons in a safe and efficient manner from rooftops, alcoves, solar panels, chimneys, window sills, and other areas.
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Nov 7, 2023 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Law, Bird Netting, Bird Spikes
PROBLEMS OF PIGEON HABITS AND HABITATS
Pigeons aren’t menacing to humans, but they can be problematic when they build a nest inside a structure. Although most people love to feed pigeons in the park, they aren’t so happy with the negative effects. The same place where pigeons roost becomes a space for pigeon droppings. These droppings are acidic and cause a lot of damage to property. Eaves and gutters can get clogged, which leaves your home vulnerable to water damage and leaks. Humans can also potentially slip and fall on the mess that accumulates. In addition, pigeon droppings can carry disease and parasites. Pigeons damage plants and crops in search of food. They don’t have natural predators, so it can be difficult to control their population. A group of pigeons can be very noisy, especially when dealing with the sound every day, 24 hours a day. Movies may romanticize the cooing that pigeons make, but when you’re woken up on a lazy Sunday morning, it’s not so idealistic. Pigeons may also bring lice, ticks, and other insects to your home through their nest.
HOW TO GET RID OF PIGEONS
If you have a flock of pigeons living in your home or business, you will need to take multiple steps to eliminate the problem. Modern pigeons may not be used as messengers any longer, but they do have a strong homing instinct. They cannot simply be relocated to remove them. Removal should be performed by a professional wildlife service that can employ countermeasures that prevent pigeons from returning to the nest.
- The nest area will need to be cleaned and disinfected.
- All food and water sources will have to be removed.
- A prevention plan will need to be established.
- Entry points of the home must be sealed off properly.
One important consideration in removing birds is to know any laws that pertain. In some jurisdictions, it is illegal to remove birds and bird’s nests with eggs, even if the birds are a nuisance. Depending on where you live, you may need to work with a wildlife agency to remove the pigeons, which is why we always recommend calling a professional.
HOW TO KEEP PIGEONS AWAY FROM YOUR HOME
Once you’ve removed the pigeons, prevention is key. The goal is to make your home as unappealing to birds as possible. Installing physical barriers, such as screens or netting, can prevent pigeons from roosting, but it’s not always practical in certain locations. There are other options that deter pigeons from nesting, such as spikes, audio, or taste deterrents and bird wire. In some cases, it’s enough to install reflective surfaces or metal surfaces that reflect sunlight. These deterrents affect a pigeon’s ability to see and keep them away from your garden or home. Keep in mind that you may want to deter pigeons from roosting in your garden without repelling beneficial wildlife, such as hummingbirds or bees. Professional wildlife removal services can help you get rid of pests without harming other wildlife. Don’t try to deal with a pigeon nest on your own. Professional wildlife control services in North York are available to keep your family safe and to prevent re-infestation. Contact Skedaddle for safe, effective, and humane wildlife removal.
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 26, 2023 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Law, Bird Netting, Bird Spikes
Through genomic sequencing, researchers at the University of Utah have discovered a single gene responsible for pigeon wing patterns and human blindness.
Genetic differences cause an infinite number of differences between species and within species, for example, the variation in human hair color.
Another example is that all of the pigeons that you see have one of only four different feather patterns. These feather patterns are due to genetic differences.
“Pigeon breeders and early pigeon biologists and geneticists found that these four different patterns seemed to be determined by a single genetic locus or a single spot on the genome,” said Anna Vickrey, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Utah and the lead investigator of this new research.
Vickery and her collaborators found that the one gene causes the four different feather patterns in pigeons.
“What we were excited to find is that there’s two kinds of variation… that was really exciting for us to find these two different mechanisms acting on a single gene that is making this suite of wing patterns,” Vickrey said.
In investigating the genetics behind pigeon feather patterns, Vickery and her collaborators made an unexpected discovery about blindness in humans.
“The gene that we ended up finding associated with the wing patterns is pretty well studied in humans in the context of a hereditary disease that causes blindness,” Vickrey.
Future research will explore this pigeon-human genetic connection.
“So in humans… what happens is their vasculature in their eyes doesn’t develop correctly and so we’re working with some collaborators to look at vasculature in pigeons’ eyes to see if it’s developing normally or if it might be similarly affected,” said Vickrey.
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 26, 2023 | Columbidae, Doves, history of pigeons, MBCA, pet bird, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings
The CIA assassinated John F. Kennedy after he refused to kill and replace billions of birds with drones. The U.S. government is sequestering a team of Boeing engineers in Area 51 for a secret military mission. Our tax dollars have been funneled into building the “Turkey X500,” a robot used to hunt large birds.
Combine all these conspiracies and you get Birds Aren’t Real, a nearly two-year-old movement that claims the CIA took out 12 billion feathered fugitives because directors within the organization were “annoyed that birds had been dropping fecal matter on their car windows.” The targets were eradicated between 1959 and 1971 with specially altered B-52 bombers stocked with poison. They were then supplanted with avian-like robots that could be used to surveil Americans.
Sounds extreme but also somewhat fitting, given the landscape of today’s social discourse. By surfacing murky bits of history and the ubiquity of Aves, Birds Aren’t Real feeds into this era of post-truth politics. The campaign relies on internet-fueled guerilla marketing to spread its message, manifesting through real-world posters and Photoshopped propaganda tagged with the “Birds Aren’t Real” slogan.
For much of its devoted fanbase, Birds Aren’t Real is a respite from America’s political divide—a joke so preposterous both conservatives and liberals can laugh at it. But for a few followers, this movement is no more unbelievable than QAnon, a right-wing conspiracy theory turned marketing ploy that holds that someone with high-level government clearance is planting coded tips in the news. Therein lies the genius of Birds Aren’t Real: It’s a digital breadcrumb trail that leads to a website that leads to a shop full of ready-to-buy merchandise.
The creative muscle behind the avian-inspired conspiracy (and thinly disguised marketing scheme) is 20-year-old Peter McIndoe, an English and philosophy major at the University of Memphis in Tennessee. McIndoe first went live with Birds Aren’t Real in January 2017 at his city’s Women’s March. A video from the event shows McIndoe with a crudely drawn sign, heckling protesters with lines like, “Birds are a myth; they’re an illusion; they’re a lie. Wake up America! Wake up!” The idea of selling Birds Aren’t Real goods, he says, came after the stunt gained traction over Instagram.
les all these accounts and fulfills every order for the Birds Aren’t Real goods he sells online. He declined to comment on how much money he’s made off the T-shirts, hats, and stickers, many of which are out of stock.
Exploiting conspiracists for profit is nothing new, says Mike Metzler, a social media influencer and viral-content creator on Instagram. Amazon sells dozens of styles of QAnon T-shirts that have become a fixture at Make America Great Again rallies around the country. What’s different is that while many QAnon believers wear their shirts in earnest, most Birds Aren’t Real fans seem to wear theirs to be ironic and on trend.
“Birds Aren’t Real is taking advantage of the meme-ification of previous conspiracy theories,” Metzler says. “People really want to believe in conspiracies—but more than that, people want to make fun of people who believe in conspiracies even more. Starting a conspiracy theory and selling Birds Aren’t Real merchandise allows them to sell to both sides,” Metzler says.
McIndoe’s movement got a free jolt of publicity on October 30 after Chicago-based journalist Robert Loerzel tweeted a photo of a Birds Aren’t Real flier he found on the street. The same flier also popped up on Reddit numerous times over the past month. The hectic and cryptic nature of the website makes it an incubator for conspiracy theories like QAnon. The Reddit forum r/conspiracy has 721,000 anonymous subscribers alone.
While some people will draw parallels between QAnon and Birds Aren’t Real (they were both launched in 2017, after all), their popularity on Reddit is the only true similarity, says Brooke Binkowski, managing editor of the myth-busting website TruthOrFiction.com and the former managing editor of Snopes. “Birds Aren’t Real is a good one, but it in no way ranks up there with the incredible complexity of whatever QAnon is,” she says over email. “QAnon has caught on because it’s interactive, it’s always evolving, and it’s completely vague—so vague that anything they say could be ‘true’ if you interpret it the right way.”
How could Birds Aren’t Real gain more dark-web cred then? “Conspiracy theories offer a way for the world to make sense, and they offer a sense of purpose to the purposeless,” Binkowski writes. “If Birds Aren’t Real hinted at some larger, dark pattern, it would really take flight.”
For now, though, this shallow conspiracy seems harmless and may even be a net gain for birds. Jordan Rutter, the director of public relations at the American Bird Conservancy, thinks the intricate history behind McIndoe’s movement is hilarious and thus, something positive. “Anything that gets people talking about birds is a good thing,” she says. “It’s definitely a way we can start a conversation.”
The filmmaker Oliver Stone once wrote that Kennedy’s assassination is “a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma.” Birds Aren’t Real, on the other hand, is a chimera of conspiracies that wraps satire, modern insecurities, and internet culture into a successful marketing scheme.
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Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 26, 2023 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Predators, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows, UltraSonic Bird Control
Why do species die out? This is the overarching question being asked by many leading researchers. Knowing more about what leads to a species’ becoming extinct could enable us to do something about it. The passenger pigeon is a famous example and the species has been studied extensively.
The passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) was once found in huge numbers in North America. Records tell of passing flocks that darkened the skies for several days at a time. The species may have peaked at five billion individuals. A more conservative estimate is three billion.
Within a short time, the species disappeared completely.
“Given the huge size of the population, it’s simply amazing that the species disappeared so quickly,” says Tom Gilbert.
Gilbert is a professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Centre for GeoGenetics, but he also has a part-time position as an adjunct professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
The human role
The history of the passenger pigeon is interesting, partly because it can tell us something about how and why species become extinct.
Native Americans also relied on passenger pigeons for food. But at least in parts of the passenger pigeons’ range, people had learned to harvest the species at a sustainable level that didn’t threaten to eradicate it.
It was common in some parts of North America to only eat young pigeons that were hunted at night, since this did not seem to scare away the adult birds or prevent them from re-nesting.
But starting around 1500, a more aggressive variant of humans came to the continent with the arrival of Europeans. The hunt for passenger pigeons grew and culminated in a massive hunt for the species throughout the 1800s, before the species finally collapsed and disappeared.
So were the Europeans then really the ones to blame for the collapse?
Already headed to oblivion?
In 2014, a study in published in the scientific journal PNAS strongly suggested that humans were simply the final straw in destroying a species that was already vulnerable and headed to oblivion.
The researchers asserted that despite their enormous numbers, the passenger pigeons were already in trouble. The population of the species varied greatly, similar to lemmings, but over a longer period of time.
When the Europeans arrived, the species was already in a strong decline. The population was plummeting long before Europeans arrived, and perhaps Europeans even contributed to a short-term increase in numbers.
Studies of the genetic variation of the species using an investigative method called PSMC formed the background for these assertions. And now we have to concentrate a bit.
From one to many
All of an individual’s genes are called a genome. You have a genome, your mom has her own genome, your dog has one and the neighbour’s cat has yet another. These can be broken down into chromosomes and genes and base pairs, but you only have a single genome.
So, all of your chromosomes and genes are found in this one genome, but at the same time this genome is unique to just you and only you. Unless, that is, you have an identical twin or are a termite or belong to another species where the individuals are largely identical clones. (In the last case, it’s remarkable that you can read this.)
Here is the crux of the matter:
The PSMC method can use the information in the genes of a single individual of a species to map the history of the species.
You should therefore be able to see how the species developed over many generations, and estimate how many individuals there were at any given time, all based on a single genome.
Humans partially off the hook
Using this method, researchers found that the number of passenger pigeons was in free fall even before the arrival of the Europeans.
Although the species might not have become extinct, it would have shrunk significantly in any case, maybe to only a few hundred thousand individuals.
People were just the final factor in their demise. We may have pushed the passenger pigeons off the cliff, but the species was already on its way there.
So — according to the researchers behind the study in PNAS — it wasn’t just the Europeans’ fault.
It sounds almost too good to be true that you can come up with something so definitive based on information from just one or a few individuals. And in this case it is — at least if we’re to believe a new study that has recently been published in the journal Science.
Ineffective for passenger pigeons
The problem is that the PSMC method can’t be used on passenger pigeons. The new research in Science provides completely different results.
Leading molecular biologist Beth Shapiro is the main author of the Science article, and Tom Gilbert is one of the study’s contributors.
PSMC is based on the assumption that genetic variations occur relatively evenly all along the chromosomes that constitute the genome. That is, genetic changes are equally likely to occur at the ends of a chromosome as in the middle. But this turns out not to be the case for this species.
“Passenger pigeons don’t have the variation patterns that we’d expect, because of the strong selection on genes that appear to have been important throughout the species’ history. So it doesn’t work to use PSMC in this case,” said Gilbert.
In passenger pigeons, most of the genetic diversity was found at the ends of the chromosome. The middle of the chromosome showed little variation from one generation to the next as a result of the selection on these genes.
This fact may not sound revolutionary, but it yields completely different results if you try to read the history of the species based on the genome of a single individual.
You have to take into account that variations are greatest in certain parts of the chromosome rather than evenly distributed throughout. This makes the PSMC method unusable in this context.
Used another method
The researchers behind the article in Science didn’t use the PSMC method. Instead, they used mitochondrial DNA from 41 passenger pigeons as their starting point. Now we have to concentrate again.
Your DNA is not your only inheritance. Mitochondrial DNA is a distinct, separate inheritance found in certain cells called mitochondria.
Regular DNA is a combination of the inheritance from your father and mother. But mitochondrial DNA is only transmitted from your mother. Variations in mitochondrial DNA also occur due to mutations, and happen relatively consistently over time.
This is a different point of departure for understanding how a species develops over time, and the results can be quite different from those generated using the PSMC method.
In addition, the study presented in Science analysed the entire genomes from four passenger pigeons and compared them with two genomes from band-tailed pigeons (Patagioenas fasciata), one of the closest relatives of the passenger pigeon.
The final result was that the new study ended up with completely different answers about the passenger pigeons and why the species met its demise.
Genetic diversity
The new study is interesting for several reasons. It tells us about the genetic diversity of the passenger pigeon, but also supports an entirely different explanation for the species’ extinction.
Scientists previously believed that the larger the population of a species is, the more genetically diverse it will be. But this theory has turned out to be wrong, as the recent passenger pigeon research has shown.
According to the article in Science, the large population size appears to have enabled passenger pigeons to adapt and evolve more quickly and thus remove harmful mutations.
In species with fewer individuals, chance can cause a less beneficial mutation to persist, but chance plays less of a role in species with greater numbers of individuals.
“Mutations that provide a major evolutionary benefit would spread rapidly,” says Gilbert.
The fact that beneficial mutations became incredibly dominant so quickly simply led to the disappearance of other genetic variants.
This in turn led to the genetic diversity in the passenger pigeon being surprisingly low in relation to the number of individuals. This may have made the species more vulnerable to changes.
But that was not why the passenger pigeon died out.
Our mistake
“The passenger pigeon died out because of people,” is Gilbert’s short version.
The passenger pigeon wasn’t in trouble prior to Europeans arrival in North America. Nothing suggests that the species was struggling in any way.
Perhaps this isn’t that surprising. In the 19th century passenger pigeons were so numerous that there were contests to shoot as many of them as possible during a certain period of time. In one competition, the winner had shot 30 000 birds.
If nothing else, the story of the passenger pigeon has contributed to a greater understanding that even prolific species can become extinct.
Something to learn
The large grasshopper Melanoplus spretus from the western United States suffered the same fate. It went from a population of several trillion to zero in a few decades, possibly because farmers destroyed its breeding grounds. In Norway and across the whole of the North Atlantic, the great auk (Pinguinus impennis) died out after people harvested them in large numbers.
People ate passenger pigeons in huge amounts, but they were also killed because they were perceived as a threat to agriculture. As Europeans migrated across North America, they thinned out and eliminated the large forests that the pigeons depended on. The pigeons lived primarily on acorns.
As the species was already dying out, 250,000 birds — the last big flock — were shot on a single day in 1896. That same year, the last passenger pigeon was observed in Louisiana. It was also shot.
The pigeons were probably dependent on a large flock size to reproduce. Their instincts didn’t work when only a few individuals remained here and there.
The last passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.
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Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 26, 2023 | Bird Spike, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows, UltraSonic Bird Control
An NHS worker has said she is completely besotted with her pet pigeon who she adopted after encountering her in a pub beer garden.
Hannah Hall, from Nottingham, filmed the unusual moment the bird – who she has named Penny – approached her at the pub and perched on her shoulder.
The video has received more than 22m views on TikTok.
Miss Hall said the reaction had been “quite overwhelming”.
“This whole experience has been really, really surreal,” she said.
She added she had been speaking regularly to a vet about how to care for the bird.
An RSPCA spokesperson said rehabilitating wild birds was best undertaken by somebody with experience.
“Their welfare needs would need to be met in captivity in the same way as for domestic pigeons,” he said.
“This includes regularly seeking advice from a vet and allowing them to have free flight in the house.”
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 26, 2023 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Law, Bird Netting, Bird Spikes
The politicians are seated in a semi-circle at a meeting of the council. One by one, they raise their voices as part of the deliberation. “I believe it is time we took a position on this,” says a black-blazered woman. “It’s not an industry that I want to support,” a second woman, wearing dark-rimmed glasses, reads into the official record.
“It’s time,” concludes the mayor, donning the heavy chain that is the insignia of his office, “to end the practice in our community.”
It is a fall meeting of the District of North Vancouver’s city council and they are discussing whether people should be allowed to keep pigeons. Councillors Lisa Muri, in the blazer, and Megan Curren, with the glasses, ultimately vote with the mayor in favour of an outright pigeon ban.
Coun. Matthew Bond, one of those who votes against, says skeptically, “I don’t necessarily see this as a good use of our time.” But the bylaw passes, four to two.
Something smells, though. Only one property in the community is known to harbour pet pigeons. Only one complaint about pigeons, dating back several years, is known to be active. Only one city councillor has recused herself from the discussion. “I have been in a situation like this,” Coun. Betty Forbes says, at the same meeting. “So I’m stepping aside.”
One plus one plus one equals . . . a conflict of interest?
Documents obtained by the CBC under access-to-information seem to bolster that view of events. The “situation” was that Forbes lived next-door to pigeons. That she did not like pigeons. And that after complaining to the city as a private citizen to no avail, she took matters into her own hands; after being elected to council in 2018, in an email to two fellow councillors, she requested a bylaw banning residents from keeping the birds.
Emails viewed by Maclean’s suggest that during the spring, Muri initiated a process to change the district’s pigeon ownership rules, and kept Forbes up to date on its progress. But the whole project has since run into trouble because it turns out Kulwant Dulay, Forbes’ neighbour, cares deeply about his pigeons. He cares enough to go to court.
His petition to B.C. Supreme Court, dated Dec. 4, seeks to have the bylaw declared illegal and set aside. It relies heavily on the CBC’s reporting, referencing emails between Forbes and Muri earlier this year that appear to reveal a plot to hatch the bylaw.
Dulay is arguing that Forbes’s involvement was “biased and bad faith and acting in a conflict of interest,” says Camille Chisholm, a lawyer representing the pigeon enthusiast. The district has retained its own lawyers and was expected to respond in January.
The same week as Dulay’s petition was filed, the District of North Vancouver announced it was tasking former B.C. privacy commissioner David Loukidelis with investigating how the pigeon ban came to be. His review, the district announced, will assess the “awareness” of conflict-of-interest rules by councillors. The process is expected to take a couple of months.
Dulay, Chisholm adds, has kept homing pigeons as pets for years—including during his time in India before he immigrated to Canada. “My neighbours in the front and back, everybody loves my pigeons,” says Dulay, adding that other than Forbes’s, he hasn’t had a complaint in 17 years. “Everybody comes to my house and looks at them. It looks cool, them flying around.” Some have names. One is called “Big Boss.” His favourite pigeon is blue and white. He said it always comes to his hand.
Dulay keeps his 15 birds in a coop that’s about as tall as the backyard fence and roomy enough for him to enter and move around. During the warmer months, he lets them out to fly around the neighbourhood, including over other people’s yards. He said they always return.
Lately, he has wondered whether Forbes has a problem with him, not his pigeons. He said she “never talks” to him, and notes that he has never complained about her two barking dogs, though he believes he might have reason to.
His across-the-street neighbour, meanwhile, has spoken in his support. “I’ve had opportunity to go over and see the coop,” Krista Page told council on Nov. 18. ”It is clean. There’s no foul smell. I’ve never met neighbours that keep a tidier driveway and home and everything.” Page noted there have been no complaints from the Dulays’ other next-door neighbour, adding: “I just feel that this is very much a misuse of power.”
Forbes declined an interview request from Maclean’s but insisted in an email that there is “another set of correct facts” to the story. “However, because the mayor has requested an inquiry of all council and himself,” the email added, “I am unable to make any comments at this time.”
Her only public response came at the end of the same meeting Krista Page attended. “If I have erred in any way,” she said, “I assure council and the community that it was done inadvertently and in good faith with my understanding, as a new councillor, of the conflict-of-interest rules.”
Muri echoed Forbes in an email to Maclean’s, saying: “We are currently reviewing the process of this bylaw, so it would be inappropriate for me to comment.” But a response to the petition later filed in court by her lawyers denies the councillor was aware of any interest Forbes could’ve had in a pigeon ban beyond one “in common with electors of the municipality generally.”
The submission argues that neither councillor stood to gain financially from the bylaw and doubles down on the councillors’ position that the ban is legitimate and serves to protect residents from current and future pigeon keepers who might “adversely impact them or their property.”
To some, this is more than a dispute between neighbours. Givo Hassko, who is on the board of the Vancouver Poultry & Fancy Pigeon Association, told council in November he believed this was a test case for corruption in Canadian politics writ large. “If there are no consequences to how council goes to change bylaws here locally or Canada-wide,” he said, “then anyone—anyone—would get a green light.”
Hassko set up a GoFundMe to help with Dulay’s legal fees. At the time of writing, it had raised $700. A single commenter named Wayne, who pitched in $55, offered this input: “It is important that pigeons are not homeless.”
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 17, 2023 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Predators, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News
For those not familiar with the world of pigeon racing, the idea that a bird can be sold at an auction for thousands of dollars might sound almost ludicrous.
But even people within the industry were taken by surprise this week when New Kim, a two-year-old racing pigeon raised in Antwerp, Belgium, was auctioned for a record $1.8 million.
“We did not expect the pigeon (price) would go so high,” said Nikolaas Gyselbrecht, the CEO of Pigeon Auction House (PIPA), where New Kim was auctioned.
The price offered for New Kim beats the one paid for the former most expensive pigeon in the world, Armando, sold to a Chinese buyer for $1.48m in 2019.
“We can already say that these record prices are unbelievable because this is a female,” said Gyselbrecht. “Armando was a male. Usually a male is worth more than a female because it can produce more offspring, more children. So it’s very exceptional to have a female for this price.”\
New Kim was bred by Flemish trainer Gaston van de Wouwer, who raised many prize-winning racing pigeons and now, at 76, is retiring and selling all his 400 birds.
The online bidding on New Kim started on November 2 at a bit more than $200 but quickly went up to the thousands as the bidder “Hitman” held off competitors to lead the pigeon. On Tuesday, he stood unchallenged with an offer of $1.5m.
On Sunday, 30 minutes before the end of the auction, a frantic bidding war between Hitman and a bidder named “Super Duper” raised the price for New Kim to $1.8m
Belgium is considered the traditional heartland of pigeon racing, which became very popular in the country in the 19th century.
“There is no country in the world where so many pigeon fanciers live (in) such a high density with each other, like in Belgium,” says Gyselbrecht. “So you have 20,000 pigeon fanciers in a very small country competing (with) each other on a very high level. It’s like the Champions League.”
Why are racing pigeons so expensive?
Pigeon racing’s popularity has steadily dropped since the 1800s, when it found a fertile ground in Belgium.
After World War I, the sport was a common hobby for the working class, but amid higher costs of living and criticisms by animal welfare activists, pigeon racing became less of a common pastime affordable to many and more of a highly competitive sport practiced by a few.
The rising popularity of the sport in China has led to billionaires investing increasingly high amounts of money in pigeons, and driving up the prize money for races.
The most expensive birds in the history of the sport, mostly Belgian pigeons, were all recently bought by Chinese bidders, as in the case of Armando and New Kim.
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 17, 2023 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Law, Bird Netting, Bird Spikes
BEIJING (Reuters) – Yu Yuguang’s heart beats faster every time he stands on his roof, eyes trained to the sky waiting for one of his pigeons to pass through the trap door of its home loft.
“Those are the most intense and enjoyable moments of a pigeon race,” says Yu, 57, adding that the sport is like playing the lottery.
He has been lucky. “Little Ancestor”, his 7-month-old pigeon, came first in a recent Chinese Racing Pigeon Association race, beating more than 4,800 competitors and completing a journey of just over 1,000 km from Langfang, near the Chinese capital Beijing, to Shanghai in a record time of 16 hours, 24 minutes and 54 seconds.
The 5,000 yuan ($760) prize money, however, pales in comparison to the 200,000 yuan ($30,600) Yu spends on his 500 pigeons each year.
In China, where pigeon racing has a long history, economic development has allowed the sport to spread beyond the ultra-wealthy. Membership in the Chinese Pigeon Association has jumped from tens of thousands in the 1980s to about 400,000, according to its vice president, Huang Jian.
By comparison Belgium, the traditional heartland of the sport, has about 20,000 pigeon fanciers.
That said, most of the huge sums that go into the sport are from deep-pocketed top-tier enthusiasts, eager to get their hands on coveted blood lines.
In November this year, a Chinese collector made headlines when he paid 1.6 million euros ($1.9 million) for a racing pigeon at an auction in Belgium – the latest in a string of eye-catching bids by Chinese fanciers that have driven up prices.
Some Chinese breeders are also willing to bid heavily on their own birds at auctions to increase their market value.
A Hangzhou-based breeder, who gave his name as Ying, travelled to Beijing last month for an auction, buying back six of his own pigeons which had placed well in races.
Ying, who bought them at prices ranging from 15,000 to 50,000 yuan, didn’t think twice about the cash he spent.
“I’m so in love with pigeons. I love them so much. In my heart, pigeons come first and my wife and children second,” he said.
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 17, 2023 | history of pigeons, MBCA, pet bird, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Predators
Look! Up in the sky! It’s … not as much as there used to be. Three billion wild birds have vanished from North America’s air in 50 years; a new study calls that loss “staggering.” Three billion is as many as 1 bird in 4 — birds of the forests, birds of the grasslands, gone. And 50 years is about the same time that it took North America to send the passenger pigeon — once the most abundant bird on the continent, flying by the billions in flocks that blocked the sun for hours at a time — to send it into extinction. These creatures who evolved from the dinosaurs, who delight us with color and song — humans are crowding them out, plowing up and chopping down their habitat, poisoning them with pesticides, installing windows that they smash into, allowing domestic cats to kill them. And just over a century after the nation began protecting its native birds with the landmark Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Trump administration is ready to weaken its enforcement. Steve Holmer heads the American Bird Conservancy, whose motto is “Bringing back the birds.” Can it be done, and how?
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Three billion birds in 50 years in this country. Why are they disappearing?
We believe it’s a combination of things. Migratory birds spend the majority of their year in the south, either the southern U.S. or in Central or South America. And so there’s all kinds of habitat issues there. And then when they actually migrate, they have what’s called stopover places, where they basically need to stop and fuel up again. If that habitat isn’t in good condition, or if they face threats there, then that could affect their migration.
Some new studies indicate that pesticides might prevent migrating birds from gaining sufficient weight. On these stopover points, they typically will gorge themselves and gain a bunch of weight so that they can fly — in some cases all the way up to the Arctic where they have their chicks. And then they come all the way back. It’s quite a gantlet that they go through. We think all of this is adding up into these declines.
Make the case for why bird life matters. People think aah, it’s just sparrows, aah, it’s just pigeons.
They’re actually a very good indicator of the overall health of the environment. When we see these bird declines, it’s an indication that in a sense there’s something out of balance. And we’ve seen certain habitats removed to a degree that the birds would become endangered. At the same time, we’ve had some very successful conservation efforts. We’ve brought the bald eagle back, for example. Its population is now increasing 10% a year, the result of banning DDT and other efforts to protect it.
Seventy years ago, Communist China crusaded against sparrows as “public animals of capitalism,” and killed billions. Without the sparrows to eat them, insects flourished, crops were destroyed and millions of Chinese starved. The earth needs birds. People need birds.
Birds play a crucial role within the ecosystem in terms of eating insects and other things and then also being eaten by other things. Part of the reason why the loss of the 3 billion birds is so significant is, that’s a huge loss of biomass that used to be in the system. We need to think about doing some things to try to restore balance.
What kinds of birds were foremost among those 3 billion that aren’t around anymore?
Really common birds, meadowlarks; grassland birds in particular seem to have taken a really huge dip. There have been some new studies showing significant impacts from pesticides. And an ongoing process called intensification with agriculture, where they’re using more and more of the land in a much more intensive fashion. And the result is there’s just less available for wildlife.
It really gets down to the price of corn in some ways. And then the subsidies for corn ethanol have actually been pretty bad for birds because they’re leading to the sod-busting and we don’t have a whole lot of original prairie left.
About a year ago the Natural Resources Management Act was signed into law by the Trump administration — a bundle of bills, and a lot of conservation groups had campaigned for them. Isn’t that something of a step forward?
It wasn’t a perfect deal, though. There was still a rider in there that prevents protection for the greater sage grouse, which right now is in severe decline. The sage grouse is a bird that lives all across the Great Basin, a little bit in northern California. That kind of desert country is where you’ll find sage grouse. They actually will eat the sagebrush and hide in it. They’re an excellent indicator for basically pristine, wide open spaces. They like big areas. They like it quiet.
As energy development and other things have descended upon that region, we’ve actually seen the grouse population decline by as much as 90%.
When we see species like the meadowlark start to disappear, species that were so common, that’s not a good harbinger for rarer species in more endangered habitats, is it?
No, that’s exactly the issue. We do carefully look at all the bird populations. There is a lot of focus on the birds that might become endangered; there’s a big effort to head that off.
But we’ve also found that once the bird is listed [as endangered], recovery efforts tend to be successful. We did an analysis a couple of years ago and found out that the biggest need for the Endangered Species Act was to increase this funding for recovery.
A number of birds have just been delisted. One of them was the Kirtland’s warbler up in Michigan, and that’s just a result of successful conservation efforts. There are some good success stories — the interior least tern and the Kirtland’s warbler and a few others are definitely at a point where they seem to be safe and stable in terms of avoiding extinction and on their way to recovery.
But others worry you.
Well, changes to the law itself are worrying me. There’s been some rule-making that can make it very difficult to get protection for new species or provide for adequate habitat protection.
I do think that the process has become politicized and we’re feeling it’s a real challenge to get a level of protection that the birds really need.
People know the phrase “canary in the mine shaft,” meaning an early harbinger of something bad about to happen. Now it seems like our whole wild bird population is the canary in the mine shaft.
That’s right, and they also are showing that they are a big indicator for global warming and climate change. You’re seeing range shifts; because it’s a little warmer, the birds are actually much further north and they’re literally following the climate band as it as it changes.
They’re fortunate in the sense that they can fly to the to a new ideal environment for themselves. Not every critter has that luxury.
As we expand, as our population gets bigger, our agricultural needs are bigger, people cut down forests for wood for myriad purposes, the birds— they gotta give.
We really do need to provide incentives to landowners to grow trees and to maintain their forests. If property values shift too far, they might go into real estate and all that land gets developed.
If we need to grow trees for climate [change purposes], we should make it a real lucrative thing for the landowner to do.
How successful is that?
We’re seeing some success. The California carbon market is really probably the greatest example where it allows for forest conservation projects. Most of them have either longer rotation, forestry or reforestation. And so either way, the environment is winning, because we’re growing trees and absorbing that carbon and providing for that habitat. The California market is something that we probably need to make national.
There was a conflict in the Pacific Northwest in the 1990s over loggers versus habitat and the endangered northern spotted owl; I think one bumper stickers said something like, “Save a logger, eat a spotted owl.” Is that the way our relationship with the natural world in general and birds and in particular is going?
It is kind of ironic because birds in general are very popular, but a couple of birds like the greater sage grouse and the spotted owl have been the flashpoint for these huge land use issues, whether it’s conservation of the many millions of acres of public lands in the sagebrush country or the old-growth forest in the Pacific Northwest.
The fact that these birds declined so far is really kind of an indication that the habitat was not being used and not being properly conserved.
There’s been, I think, a very successful effort to protect the old-growth forest under the Northwest Forest Plan, but it’s by no means a perfect plan. But it has brought an end to the worst type of old-growth logging that used to happen.
And we are actually seeing some real benefits in terms of improved water quality. The forests in the region are now a big carbon sink where they absorb carbon instead of being a source of emissions every year or so.
So the public has seen some real side benefit in addition to the conservation of the forests.
Unfortunately, we have some policymakers who are trying to open up the old-growth forest again to logging, whether it be in Alaska or in the Pacific Northwest or Northern California. And we’re trying to counter that.
A lot of the work that we do is in partnership with other conservation groups. We manage a coalition called the Bird Conservation Alliance, which has over 200 groups doing public outreach and events to raise awareness about our program.
People like the idea of birds — they just don’t perhaps make the connection between, Oh, that’s a bird, and I like to hear it, I like to see it … and what it takes to keep that bird alive.
And sometimes people don’t see how their actions might affect things. A couple of the biggest sources of mortality for birds are window collisions and cats.
With windows, it’s estimated about a billion [birds are killed] a year, and it tends to be on the glass facades and ground-level windows that reflect foliage. There are ways, despite how the landscape is designed or where the windows are themselves; there’ve been windows tested that reduce the number of collisions. We’re working on various pieces of legislation that encourage the use of bird-safe building designs and materials.
There’s actually solutions for homeowners. There’s glass products and films that they can put on the windows to treat them so that the collisions can be greatly reduced.
The same with cats. Keeping cats indoors is safer for the cat. And it greatly reduces the predation that would happen if they were outdoors.
Many people let their cats outside to roam around, not thinking about the devastation that cats can wreak by killing birds — not a pleasant thing for bird lovers or for cat lovers.
In the West, there’s there is a big problem for cat owners seeing their cats outdoors having all kinds of issues, whether it’s fights with other cats, getting hit by cars and that kind of thing.
But the big issue lately is coyotes. If you’re leaving your cat outside, particularly at night, it’s a huge risk to them.
How many birds are cats killing?
Well, it is estimated it’s in the billions. Particularly when you think about the fledgling birds, they tend to be very vulnerable for their first couple of months, before they’ve really gotten to be full size and full strength. There’s just a tremendous toll every year.
What about windmills? President Trump says windmills kill a lot of birds.
Windmills do kill birds. We estimate as many as a million birds a year are killed by wind turbines and associated infrastructure. There are guidelines in place right now that can reduce this mortality. Unfortunately, they’re not being used that consistently. We’re working on a [proposed] piece of legislation called the Migratory Bird Protection Act that we think eventually could lead to these guidelines getting into use more often.
The changes that are happening to the [landmark 1918] Migratory Bird Treaty Act by the administration right now — one of the biggest problems is the fact that it won’t encourage us to solve these problems any longer. The law was intended to encourage industry to find ways to stop killing birds accidentally. So whether it be [birds] falling into oil pits or running into communications towers, there has been a lot of effort over time to reduce that mortality.
As a result of this change that’s been proposed by the administration and already put in effect through a legal opinion a couple of years ago, we’re actually no longer seeing enforcement that we used to have.
So at the same time bird populations are declining, we’re actually seeing weaker enforcement and weaker protection.
With wind and also with oil and gas and pretty much on any aspect, they’ve basically said that they’re no longer going to enforce the law.
And this could even be in extreme worst cases of oil spills where, in the past, there would have been big fines applied. Now they’re basically saying there’s no law any longer.
We’re already fighting, as is the state of California. We’re hopeful to overturn their efforts to weaken the law.
The Migratory Bird Protection Act, sponsored by Rep. Alan Lowenthal from California, would actually kind of bring about these best management practices that I was just talking about. The bill has gone through a House committee and is awaiting a vote on the House floor. And people can express their support to their lawmakers to pass the Migratory Bird Protection Act.
It sounds like California’s doing a pretty good job of getting on top of this.
California has an outstanding legislature in terms of passing bills to protect the environment and fill in the gap while the federal government is kind of dithering about right now.
One area where California took the lead was in the phase-out of toxic lead ammunition. There’s now nontoxic alternatives available.
Most Americans live in suburban or urban areas now. I’m wondering about the urban bird population.
There’s actually a lot that we can do in our urban areas. Urban forests are very important. And each homeowner can do things with their own landscaping, things that that could actually really benefit wildlife, just in our own back yard.
Are you a birdwatcher? Is there a species that speaks to you?
Right now, I’d have to say the marbled murrelet is the species that really speaks to me. It’s right on the coast of northern California and Oregon and Washington state. And it’s a neat little seabird that goes out and forges on little fish and then it nest in the tops of old-growth trees. Those tend to be the very biggest trees that are like 200 years old or older. So there’s a huge overlap between the marbled murrelet and these really high-carbon forests that are valuable in terms of the fight on climate change. There’s all kinds of habitat protection and recreation.
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 17, 2023 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows, UltraSonic Bird Control
Scientists found that attaching small weights to pigeons causes them to shoot up in the social hierarchy. The finding is important because scientists often attach trackers to pigeons.
Now a story about what happens when you turn society upside down – specifically, pigeon society.
It turns out there is a social hierarchy among pigeons, and it definitely pays to be the big bird on campus.
Being top of the dominance hierarchy basically gives you preferential access to everything. It means you get priority access to food, priority access to mates.
That’s Steve Portugal, a zoologist and biologist at Royal Holloway, University of London. And contrary to what you may have heard about the early bird getting the worm, in the case of pigeons, it is heavier birds that get all the perks.
So Portugal and his colleagues wondered what would happen if you made lighter pigeons feel heavier. If you beefed them up, would they punch above their weight?
They tested their theory in a captive flock of homing pigeons. They identified the birds in the bottom half of the hierarchy and loaded them up with tiny weights – little bird backpacks, actually.
And sure enough, when I did that, they became much more aggressive, started much more fights and won many more fights as well.
The former head honcho pigeons took notice.
What was fascinating just to sort of watch anecdotally was, you know, they could see that they were a bit like, what’s going on? You know, what’s happening? We’re being sort of – there’s a military coup, almost, against us.
Apparently, they fought back at first. But eventually, among the males, the birds with the little backpacks prevailed.
The researchers say the extra weight might have made the lighter pigeons feel like they were in better shape, like they had more energy to burn picking fights.
Or perhaps they just hunted for food more aggressively than usual because, you know, strutting around with weights meant burning more calories and needing more food. The findings appear in the journal Biology Letters.
Portugal says this research is important because scientists often attach tiny trackers to pigeons and other animals, and that adds extra weight.
They might not be physiologically impeded by them, but they – it might be having an impact on their social structure, their social networks, their group dynamics.
As for the pigeons in this study, once the backpacks came off, the old pecking order snapped right back into place. The lightweights were back to scratching out a living at the bottom of the heap.
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 17, 2023 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Law, Bird Netting, Bird Spikes
Psittacosis is an infectious flu-like disease which spreads to humans from infected birds like pigeons. It is caused by the bacteria Chlamydia psittaci.
Though psittacosis appears to be mild in nature, it causes illness and pneumonia or lung infection.
Bird Fancier’s Lung or bird breeder’s lung is a type of hypersensitivity pneumonitis which is caused due to the antigens present in bird droppings.
In this infection, the patient experiences flu-like symptoms like shortness of breath or dyspnea and cough. In many cases, the patient also experiences weight loss, anorexia and extreme weight loss.
When the disease worsens it reduces the lungs’ efficiency over time and leads to pulmonary fibrosis. This can eventually lead to respiratory failure.
In January 2020, two women from Mumbai, aged 38 and 68, underwent lung transplant due to a serious health condition called chronic hypersensitivity pneumonitis which is also called as environment related lung fibrosis.
News reports have said that pulmonologist Unmil Shah and others whom the patients visited over the years found pigeon droppings in the common duct area of their building. One of the patients said her breathing problems started after she moved to her new home.
Pigeon droppings carry over 60 diseases research studies have found.
Pigeon droppings cause respiratory diseases like Histoplasmosis, fungal infection Candidiasis, pulmonary disease called Cryptococcosis which affects the central nervous system at a later stage, St. Louis Encephalitis an inflammation of the nervous system, Salmonellosis or food poisoning, and infections caused by E.Coli present in the bird droppings.
Bird droppings also cause Newcastle disease, a highly contagious disease of birds caused by a paramyxovirus.
Pigeons of the metro cities are well fed. From appeasing celestial bodies to just for fun, metro dwellers love feeding pigeons. This is also the best way to keep the interaction with nature going for those who stay in small congested areas in big cities.
Feeding birds during dawn and dusk is an integral part of metro life.
While maintaining the bare minimum connection with nature is essential and should not be cut down completely, an additional responsibility of discarding the animal wastes is what people need to accept right now.
Those who have got COPD or have asthma allergic problems can develop severe reactions upon exposure to pigeon droppings and their lung conditions can deteriorate, says Dr Rai.
“To stay safe, avoid feeding pigeons so that their population density remains under control. Avoid going to highly risky places where pigeon droppings are. At an individual level, people can keep nets to minimize exposure to pigeon droppings. Those who use ACs should be careful as pigeons tend to remain near it; those areas need to be clear of pigeon droppings,” suggests Dr Rai.
Use a mask to clean pigeon droppings on balconies and windows, he adds.
Since pigeon droppings are known to carry over 60 diseases research studies it is extremely important to keep the surroundings clean, particularly if you have been feeding them for a long time, explains Dr. S.P Rai, Consultant, pulmonary medicine and sleep medicine at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, Mumbai.
Do not let the droppings accumulate. Use water and a disinfectant to clean the area which is frequented by the avians, he adds.
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 3, 2023 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Predators, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons
A Thai district chief has clipped the wings of his town’s pigeon population by paying residents to trap the birds and organising a cook-off to build support for the cull.
The campaign to go after hundreds of thousands of pigeons started earlier this week in a district of Lop Buri province – a region better known for its monkey menace.
“The number of pigeons increases four to five times each year, if we don’t do anything the problem will get worse,” said Plaek Thepparak, the highest government official in Mueang district, who came up with the idea.
The birds were a nuisance and defecated on government offices, historical sites, temples and houses while ravaging local crops, he added.
“Before people can drink rain water but now they have to buy drinking water because rain water is dirty from bird droppings,” he said.
Residents will get 10 baht (about $0.30) per trapped birds, which will be transferred to a quarantine centre in a nearby province.
But cooking them up is also on the menu.
“We also urged residents to eat the dead pigeons but only if they are hygienic and cook them well,” Plaek said, adding the town hosted a “pigeon menu” cooking competition earlier this week with cash prizes.
The dishes whipped up included a simple fried pigeon, knocked back with a side of Thailand’s classic papaya salad.
Two hours north of the capital Bangkok, Lop Buri is on Thailand’s tourist circuit and is better known as a haven for monkeys, but even they are being outnumbered by the birds.
“There are about 3,000 monkeys but there are hundreds of thousands of pigeon,” Plaek said.
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 3, 2023 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Law, Bird Netting, Bird Spikes
PETA Supporters to Demand That Retailer Stop Cruel, Ineffective Trapping Program
For Immediate Release:
September 6, 2018
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
Los Angeles – What: Forever 21 has reportedly hired a contractor who has been trapping pigeons at its Los Angeles headquarters, prompting PETA supporters to plan to descend on the building on Friday to urge the retailer to stop trapping the birds immediately and instead take steps to make the area unappealing to them.
When: Friday, September 7, 2 p.m.
Where: Forever 21 Headquarters, 3880 N. Mission Rd. (at the intersection of N. Mission Road and Baldwin Street), Los Angeles
The pigeon problem appears to be related to a food truck that visits the company’s parking lot. PETA has attempted to work with Forever 21, offering myriad suggestions for peacefully coexisting with the birds and discouraging their presence, including simple measures such as keeping trash contained and secured and dumpsters locked, as well as barring workers and patrons from feeding the birds—but so far, it has refused to take these steps. Trapping initiatives actually backfire, because the resultant spike in the food supply accelerates breeding among survivors and inevitable newcomers, and populations then increase.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that trapping initiatives cause animals immense suffering, as they can quickly succumb to stress, exposure, or injuries sustained in frantic attempts to escape.
“Forever 21’s decision to trap pigeons who are simply trying to eke out an existence is cruel, and such initiatives can tear wild families apart, leaving orphaned young to starve,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on the retailer to nix this methodically cruel trapping and put into motion humane coexistence measures instead.”
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Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 3, 2023 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Predators, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows
A FALCON and a pigeon have been killed in Co Tyrone in what has been described as “one of the most serious incidents of peregrine persecution in Northern Ireland for several years”.
The PSNI were last night continuing to investigate after the birds were found dead at around 10pm in the Scraghey area, near Castlederg on July 10.
It is thought those behind the attack tied up the pigeon and covered it with poison, using it as bait to trap a peregrine falcon.
DUP MLA Jim Wells, also a member of the NI Raptor Study Group, described the incident as “cruel”.
“The vigilance of several members of the Raptor Study Group and the very quick response by the PSNI has revealed what is likely to be one of the most serious incidents of peregrine persecution in Northern Ireland for several years,” he told the Ulster Herald.
“The use of poison on a pigeon to kill a protected bird of prey is cruel, dangerous and totally irresponsible. The peregrine falcon once faced extinction due to the use of pesticides and now it’s recovery is threatened by those who seek to kill adults and young using totally illegal and reckless methods”.
He added:”The research has revealed that illegal prosecution remains a problem in some parts of the county. There are those who want to prevent people living in this area from seeing the fastest bird in the world”.
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 3, 2023 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Predators, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows, UltraSonic Bird Control
Filmmaker Michael Bay has been charged with killing a pigeon back in 2018 while filming a movie in Italy.
The Wrap reported that the Transformers director was accused of killing the bird during the production of Netflix’s 6 Underground in Rome.
Authorities claim the homing pigeon was killed on a moving dolly during a take.
Pigeons are protected in both Italy and in the European Union under the Birds Directive, which states it is illegal to ‘kill, trap or trade’ them.
According to The Wrap, an individual who was allegedly present when the incident occurred on set reported it to Italian police shortly after. However, Bay has fiercely denied these claims.
He told the outlet: “I am a well-known animal lover and major animal activist.
“No animal involved in the production was injured or harmed. Or on any other production I’ve worked on in the past 30 years.”
Bay and his legal team have made multiple attempts to have the case thrown out in court.
The director maintains as he has video evidence of the incident, which proves he is innocent.
He said: “We have clear video evidence, a multitude of witnesses, and safety officers that exonerates us from these claims. And disproves their one paparazzi photo — which gives a false story.”
He added: “There is an ongoing court case so I cannot get into the specifics, but I am confident we will prevail when I have my day in court.
While Italian authorities have offered to settle the case with the director paying a small fine, Bay refused as he did not want to ‘plead guilty to having harmed an animal’.
The 2018 flick 6 Underground follows a group of people who fake their own deaths and form a vigilante team to stage a coup d’état against a ruthless dictator.
The film stars Ryan Reynolds, Dave Franco, Melanie Laurent and Corey Hawkins.
And, just like all of Bay’s movies, 6 Underground had a whopping budget of USD $150 million (AUD 216m).
But despite this, it was a flop according to Netflix’s head of original films, Scott Stuber.
“We didn’t feel like we got there on that one creatively,” Stuber told Variety.
“It was a nice hit, but at the end of the day we didn’t feel like we nailed the mark to justify coming back again.
“There just wasn’t that deep love for those characters or that world.”
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird
deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
