Bald eagles aren’t just an iconic national symbol south of the border — here in Toronto, they’re the noble and brave protectors of garbage dumps.
Local landfills are plagued by garbage-eating seagulls. They harm themselves by eating unnatural food sources and can harm the environment by carrying trash outside the landfill.
The city’s eco-friendly solution to that problem? Massive birds of prey that swoop in and scare the seagulls away.
“We train these raptors to chase the gulls away,” said Stephen Bucciarelli, president of Predator Bird Services Inc. “It’s essentially their job to do it. But to them it’s not going to work, they just have fun all day flying around.”
This one-year-old bald eagle is just one of the predatory birds that scares seagulls away from Toronto landfills. It’s still young and will grow to have a white feathered head as it becomes mature.
Falconry is a practice that dates back thousands of years. The predatory birds, including hawks and falcons, were trained to catch prey as food for humans before guns became a common tool in hunting.
Within the last 40 years, companies like Bucciarelli’s have used falconry as a form of bird control.
“We’ve learned how to manage these birds so they are really comfortable at work and effective at it,” he said.
A one-year-old bald eagle is one of the predators that soars across Toronto landfills.
Stephen Bucciarelli is president of Predator Bird Services Inc. The company trains birds of prey to scare away other, smaller birds.
“He’s just learning the ropes of flying in the wind and he’s doing really well,” Bucciarelli said, adding that the eagle and its winged colleagues are so effective at their job that gulls don’t even frequent the landfills anymore — they’ve learned to stay far away.
It’s a win-win because the seagulls don’t know what’s good for them, he said.
“It’s not good for birds to eat unnatural food sources, so if we’re scaring them…they’re going to be eating from natural sources like fish rather than things leftover from humans,” Bucciarelli said.
Seagulls that are harming the environment and themselves by eating unnatural food sources at landfills better watch out. This bald eagle is serious about protecting city territory.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
At least one of Toronto’s new supposedly raccoon-proof green bins has been chewed up a week after it was wheeled out in Scarborough.
Brad Gates of Gates Wildlife tells Moore in the Morning it looks to him that this is the work of either a squirrel or a rat.
The bite marks on the bin’s plastic lid tell the tale.
The city’s response to the chewed up bin? Try a home remedy: sprinkle a bit of hot sauce on the lid.
“It is not indestructible,” Jim McKay, general manager of solid waste services, says of the new bin.
He says the unique part of the new bin is the locking lid. The rest of it is pretty standard.
McKay says the plastic is basically the same material and thickness as the old bins, which also had squirrel problems.
He does not sound too concerned, adding that only 0.5 per cent of the old bins would have to be replaced each year due to animal damage.
Gates adds there will be pockets of Toronto more overrun by squirrels where the new green bins will be “rendered useless”.
But Gates says there is not much that can guarantee rodents stay out.
“We see raccoons and squirrels chew through metal all the time in our business,” he warns. “As long as they can get an edge to start to open up a hole, they will begin to chew on it.”
Mayor John Tory, who has been a part of two staged photo ops in the last year to show off the new bins joked about the breach on twitter.
Speaking on the Moore in the Morning roundtable councillor Shelley Carroll says city staff has some explaining to do.
“We guaranteed to people that you gotta do the change-out, the locking mechanism will keep out the raccoons. How did they not know about this?”
The city is paying a California firm $31-million for a 10-year contract to replace and maintain Toronto’s 500,000 green bins.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
ACTION is being taken to curb the amount of pigeon mess being left outside a Halstead shop.
The former Lalezar building, in High Street, has become a mecca for pigeons which sit on the various ledges at the front of the shop.
However, this has led to the building and the pavement below it becoming covered in their mess.
Gordon Birchell, of Birchell Steel Consultant Surveyors, which is marketing the empty building for let, said: “They are doing what pigeons do.
“We have put up the scaffolding to do something about it.
“The pigeons are everywhere in Halstead and they are an awful problem.”
Complaints about the mess outside the building were first made in November, with Braintree Council’s Street Scene Team promising to clean up the pavement.
He added that he was in negotiations with a company interested in moving into the ground floor, but declined to say what the company was.
“It isn’t a restaurant, but it is catering related,” he said.
Charity shop St Helena Hospice, opposite the restaurant, was due to move into the building this year, but pulled out after deciding the costs involved were too high.
The building, formerly a post office, was built in November 1895 and has changed hands many times in recent years.
Lalezar opened in May 2014 before closing at the start of 2015 following a gas leak and the building has been vacant ever since.
Mr Birchell said he was confident the former Thomas Cook shop, further down High Street, would also soon be occupied.
The shop had been empty for two years before being bought at auction by a London-based investor for £150,000.
The investor had planned to use the building himself, but is now planning to rent it out, according to Mr Birchell.
He said that it was “just about under offer”.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
Circle Line services were out of action after netting to stop pigeons nestling on the tracks collapsed at High Street Kensington at around 4.25pm. A train in front of the netting, and the entire station, was evacuated.One enraged user tweeted: “It is absurd that some obstruction whatever it may be is causing an entire line to go down!”A Transfort for London (TFL) spokesman said that services were slowly making a recovery after the track was reopened at 5.12pm.The spokesman told the Daily Star Online: “It was some netting that fell from the roof of the station and on to the tracks and I think it was as a train was approaching.”Obviously we can’t have trains running on netting.
Due to a reported emergency just evacuated from train at High Street Kensington. Mayhem.
“High Street Kensington has reopened as of 5.12pm so trains are running through the stations without any problems.”As of 5.35pm, there are still severe delays between Earls Court station and Edgware Road on the District Line.There are minor delays on the remainder of the District Line.There is still severe delays on the Circle Line.
The spokesman added: “There were no injuries to passengers and staff.”
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
A dispute between neighbors in Palm Coast’s C-Section over the copious presence of Purple Martin birds and involving a drone, a laser pointer, the daily Apocalypse Now-like broadcasting of loud predatory bird sounds and complaints to local authorities, has escalated into a lawsuit from one neighbor against another.
Philip Lowe, 77, and his wife Sarah Thompson-Lowe, of 29 Collingwood Lane, filed the lawsuit in Flagler County Circuit Court in early April against Bryan Streetman, 47, of 25 Collingwood Lane. The lawsuit was the culmination of a series of actions the Lowes took against Streetman, including a complaint with the Palm Coast Code Enforcement division, a petition signed by 18 neighborhood residents seeking an end to Streetman’s broadcasting “shrill and screeching predatory bird sounds” from 7:15 a.m. until dark, complaints to police in mid-February, and a lawyer’s cease-and-desist letter seeking to stop Streetman from flying his drone or using a laser light in such a way as to intrude on neighbors.
Earlier this month, Streetman countered with a motion to dismiss the lawsuit against him, claiming his neighbors have no “clear legal right” to seek an injunction against him.
The Lowes have lived at their current address for 17 years. For all that time, between each January and July, they’ve maintained 24 bird gourds on their dock as nesting sites for Purple Martin birds, which are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Lacey Act, their lawyer says. Aside from their elegance and aesthetically pleasing presence to many residents—including those at 31 and 11 Collingville Court, who also maintain nesting gourds—the birds help control the mosquito population.
Streetman moved in next door three years ago. In January and February, the Lowes claimed in the lawsuit, Streetman flew a drone in the rear of his property, but also above the Lowes’s property and near the nesting gourds, resulting in altercations between the neighbors. On Feb. 14, Delphine Meyers, the neighbor at 11 Collingville Court, directly across the canal from Streetman’s property, reported to the sheriff that a bright red and green laser beam was penetrating her home from a laser bird deterrent system on Streetman’s grounds. (Code Enforcement issued a nuisance citation to Streetman over the laser and noise issues on Feb. 19.)
St. Augustine attorney Marcus Thompson sent a letter to Streetman on behalf of the Lowes on Feb. 22 citing the “excessive noise” of the drone and its use of a camera as violating the city’s nuisance ordinance and, in the case of the camera, state law, which prohibits surveillance. Thompson also noted the laser incident, which was documented by a sheriff’s deputy at the scene. “It is our hope that these issues can be resolved peacefully and respectfully, without the necessity of litigation,” Thompson wrote.
Streetman turned off the laser only to place an inflatable and noisy “air dancer” device on his property as a new deterrent to the birds. According to the lawsuit, he continued flying the drone and using high-frequency noise devices, which the suit claims have affected the Lowes’s ability to sleep while creating “a serious discomfort, distress and inconvenience” to them and other neighbors. The repetitive nature of the noise is equated to harassment, according to the suit, which seeks an end to the use of those devices, or flying the drones near the nesting areas of the birds, or using laser lights.
In his response on behalf of Streetman, attorney Ryan Mitchell ridiculed the claim that his client was in any way violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, for two reasons: Streetman is in no way hunting, shooting, killing, wounding or trapping the birds, as the act sets out as prohibited actions. And the federal act “has clearly established that there is no private right of action conferred on individuals.” In other words, as Mitchell cites through various federal cases, it’s not an avenue in property disputes between neighbors. The same reasoning was applied to the code enforcement violation.
Mitchell was similarly dis missive of the use of the Lacey Act to back up the lawsuit against Streetman, as the Lacey Act, he argued, regulates the importation and transportation of species, and therefore has nothing to do with the present dispute.
A hearing on the dispute is scheduled before Circuit Judge Scott DuPont on June 30, in Courtroom 402 at the Flagler County Courthouse.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
HUNTSVILLE – Spikes and trapping have failed, so it’s time for round three.
The Huntsville general committee voted in favour on May 25 of purchasing a net with an estimated cost of between $10,000 and $14,000 in order to keep pigeons out of the entrance to the Canada Summit Centre. This is the third time this issue has come before councillors since December of last year and all previous methods to keep pigeons out of the area have failed.
The last time the pigeon problem was raised council approved an $850-a-month plan to trap and relocate the birds. That plan was never implemented due to the contractor wanting to operate the relocation program for longer than council was willing to fund it.
Brian Crozier, town property manager, said at this point removing nests has only led to the pigeons becoming more entrenched in the building.
“I would really like to never come back and speak at this table about this issue again. Anything we can do from a permanent stand point would be great.”
– Brian Crozier
“The dormers seem to have been the staging area and as we’ve been pushing them, they’ve been moving further and further back into the building and finding other nesting areas on the site as well. We’ve been finding nests on the roof, in the gutters. We’ve actually pushed pigeons to the back of the building. The process we’ve started has just started,” said Crozier.
Councillors favoured the net option, as they believed trapping the birds could just lead to endless expense on the matter with no real end. Crozier pointed out the net would likely mean the birds would move to other locations in town, like the front of the Active Living Centre.
The Town of Bracebridge reportedly successfully dealt with their pigeon problem after a pigeon relocation program that trapped 400 to 500 birds in a year.
One of the town’s earlier attempts to keep the birds out was to spend around $10,000 to install spikes along the lights and surfaces in the entranceway. That proved ineffective as, according to staff, the pigeons would just push them aside.
Councillor Bob Stone repeated his criticism that the town had not been properly maintaining the spikes installed in the area.
Huntsville mayor Scott Aitchison said he hopes the net will solve the pigeon problem once and for all.
“We’ve spent, it looks like, $5,000 this year and $5,000 next year for the pigeon relocation program. Why don’t we finally spend $10,000 to $15,000 and put the nets up so we never have to spend it again,” said Aitchison.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
At first the whole thing seemed preposterous. No way this could happen. Tom Roden, 66 at the time, was standing at the door of his home near Manchester, England. “I was just setting out on a walk with my dog when I saw him,” he told a reporter. “I recognized him straight away because of his white tail feathers.”
It was a pigeon. His pigeon. It had been missing for five years. Suddenly it was back. Why? And where were the tens of thousands of pigeons that vanished with him?
It had a name: Champion Whitetail. In 1997, Roden had sent Whitetail and a bunch of other racing birds to France, 430 miles south, to compete in the Royal Pigeon Association’s centenary cross-Channel competition, a major long-distance pigeon race with cash prizes that attracted 60,000 bird entries. The contestants, quietly cooing, were brought to a field near Nantes and released at 6:30 in the morning—that was the race’s motto: “At dawn we go.”
At the signal the birds took flight and, following a deep pigeon instinct, dashed at speeds as high as 50 miles an hour straight back toward their roosts, or “lofts,” all across England. This is something pigeons do. It’s called a homing instinct, and even though many of these animals had never been to France before, didn’t recognize the land below them, and had to cross a wide channel of ocean water before finding the house or roof or backyard from which they came, normally most of these racers would have find their way home.
Whitetail was expected to arrive early, because he was a champion. He’d already won 13 races in his lifetime, had flown across the English Channel 15 times, and had finished the Central Southern Classic from Lessay in northern France against a field of 3,026 birds with the winning time. He was a bird to watch.
So on Sunday, June 29, 1997, Roden was doing just that—waiting at home and watching for Whitetail, who could be expected to land at, well, Roden was hoping for a 2 p.m. or so arrival. Maybe earlier. He waited. And waited.
But Whitetail didn’t show.
A few of Roden’s birds did arrive later that day—but not Whitetail. The same thing was happening all over England. Tens of thousands of birds belonging to hundreds of English pigeon racers never made it home. They simply disappeared. There’d been no storm on the Channel, no ferocious headwinds, no giant gusts, nothing that would explain why so many birds would suddenly vanish. Where did they go?
The newspapers dubbed this “The Great Pigeon Race Disaster.” And for the next five years nobody could say what happened until Roden, standing at his front door, saw Whitetail calmly land right there in front of him. Could it be, he wondered? So he went and checked the ring attached to one of the pigeon’s legs, “and his ring number confirmed I was right.”
Whitetail was back. “I was absolutely amazed,” Roden told the Manchester papers. “He must have a phenomenal memory to recognize his way home after all this time.” For a 16-year-old pigeon, he looked spry and healthy. Pigeons tell no tales, of course, but his reappearance meant whatever it was that pushed tens of thousands of pigeons off course hadn’t killed them all. More than a few scientists were curious.
When they checked, not only was the weather on that day in 1997 largely clear—with no sudden changes in barometric pressure, no unusual fogs, no interference in the magnetic field (which pigeons use to navigate)—but nothing obvious seemed amiss.
That’s when a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey, John Hagstrum, had an idea. What if birds navigate by hearing sounds we humans can’t? Earlier experiments had shown that pigeons can hear tones 11 octaves below middle C—that’s way, way below our human range. What might they be hearing?
Here’s a hint: Jennifer Ackerman, in her new book The Genius of Birds, describes another bird mystery. This one took place in eastern Tennessee.
It was April 2014, and researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, were testing whether a population of tiny golden-winged warblers … could carry geolocators on their backs. The birds had arrived only in the past day or two after a 3,000-mile journey north from their wintering grounds in Columbia. The team had just attached the gizmos to the tiny warblers when all the birds suddenly flew the coop, spontaneously evacuating their nesting grounds.
Where’d they go? Why would so many birds all scatter at the same time? Ackerman says that later scientists learned that a gigantic spring storm, a supercell, was heading toward Tennessee at that very moment—one that “would spawn eighty-four tornadoes and kill thirty-five people.” When it was still 250 to 500 miles away, the warblers seemed to hear it coming—the deep rumble of storm reached them, and so the birds scattered, flying every which way, even as far as Cuba. When the storm passed, they all returned and began to breed.
Can birds hear subtle changes wafting long distance through the air? John Hagstrum thinks they can. Not just warblers, but, in our case, pigeons may be able to sense soft, low background noises—the sounds of swells in the ocean, the swishswash of waves, changes in air pressure—and can read those sounds as they bounce, wavelike, off hillsides, cliffs and other steep terrain. “Similar to the way we see a landscape,” Hagstrum told Ackerman, “I think birds are hearing it.” These low, low natural sounds are carried on “infrasound waves.” Those waves exist. That we know. They may help birds read the map below them and teach them how to find their way home.
Thinking about the Great Pigeon Race Disaster, Hagstrum noted that our 60,000 pigeons were heading north from Nantes in France at speeds varying from 20 to 50 miles per hour. The fastest birds, he figures, might have reached the Channel Crossing on or about 11 a.m. that day as they headed to their various homes in England.
Could something have interfered with their ability to “hear” and “read” the terrain below? Something unexpected? Violent? Different?
Hagstrum cast about and noticed that on the day of the race, the fastest commercial airliner in the world, a Concorde supersonic transport (SST) just happened—at 11:20 to 11:30 that morning—to be flying across the birds’ flight path along the English Channel. The Concorde SST in its day was an impressive piece of engineering. It flew so high that passengers could look out the window and see the sky above darkening, glimpsing the edge of space. It traveled at twice the speed of sound (1,354 miles per hour) and so could make the trip from Paris to New York in just three and a half hours. It was also beautiful …
… but a Concorde in flight leaves its mark—in sound. As the plane gathered speed once it broke the sound barrier at 750 miles per hour, it would have created a shock wave that would have traveled quickly and widely back toward the ground—and back toward those pigeons. The pigeons would have noticed.
Any jet moving through the air faster than the speed of sound creates a shock, laying down, says Hagstrum, “a sonic boom carpet” almost a hundred miles wide that would certainly have, as Ackerman writes, obliterated “the pigeons’ navigational, acoustic map, completely disorienting them.”
If Hagstrum’s idea proves true, we can imagine what happened on that day. The birds took off, heading north toward England. The Concorde took off, heading east toward America. When the birds and plane crossed paths, the sonic boom trailing off the Concorde so discombobulated the pigeons that, like the Tennessee warblers, they scattered in every direction, flying east, west, north, and maybe even south again, back to Nantes.
Which brings us back to Whitetail. We now know where our champion pigeon spent at least the beginning of his missing five years.
A few weeks after Whitetail’s return, a letter arrived at Roden’s house, addressed to “Monsieur Tom Roden, Interested in Pigeons, Hattersley, England.” It came from Jean Bouchard, resident of Nantes, who wrote that sometime on the day of the cross-Channel race in 1997, he walked into his small garden and found, sitting there, exhausted, a pigeon.
The pigeon had a ring with a number on it. Bouchard wrote down the number and decided to keep the bird for a while, until it “built up its strength.” He built him a birdcage “to protect him from neighbour’s cats” and then, several weeks later, took him to the local natural history museum, where he presumes the pigeon was released.
When, years later, Whitetail’s return to Manchester hit the Internet, Bouchard saw the story, compared ring numbers, and wrote Roden: I’m the guy who found your champion. Your bird was my bird.
Which leaves me wondering: How come this pigeon, which had outpaced thousands of competitors and crossed the Channel 15 times without a hitch, ended up dazed and exhausted a few miles from the start of his race? Had he gotten sick? Or had he gone hundreds of miles north, hit a shock wave, lost his bearings, reversed direction, and ended back where he started?
We can’t ask him. Even if pigeons could talk, Whitetail was 16 when he returned to England. That’s extremely old for a homing pigeon, even a domesticated one. I imagine Whitetail is beyond talk now. Concordes aren’t flying any more. Tens of thousands of pigeons remain missing. Were they sonic-boomed? Maybe. Where did they go? Nobody really knows, but closing my eyes, here’s what I see …
… An old pair of pigeons, long past their racing days, are hobbling along a busy Polish sidewalk. They have a strange fondness for fish and chips, and when I listen very closely (at 11 octaves below middle C), I sometimes catch them humming snatches from “God Save the Queen.” They seem a little confused.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
Pigeons, squirrels, raccoons and deer all have something in common in the City of Victoria’s downtown and environs: They are not to be fed.
The topic has come into the public eye thanks to a photo making the rounds on the Internet. In it, a woman chats to a pair of staffers from Victoria Animal Control Services while surrounded by about 50 pigeons.
Another 30 to 40 birds roost in nearby trees during their conversation, which took place on a Pandora Avenue boulevard near Vancouver Street.
Under a city bylaw, it is illegal to intentionally feed or leave out food for deer, raccoons, squirrels and feral rabbits.
Within the downtown area — an area roughly bounded by Bay Street, the legislature, the harbour and Cook Street — pigeons, crows and gulls may not be fed.
Violators are subject to a fine of $125.
The woman was not issued a ticket.
According to the city, she was merely advised of the regulations.
The animal-control officers went to the area after receiving complaints from residents, said a city spokeswoman.
“There have been growing concerns about the increasing number of pigeons in the area due to daily feeding at this location,” Katie Hamilton said.
“It is resulting in increased noise and bird excrement on neighbouring properties.”
A bylaw against feeding pigeons and other animals was put in place “because of the potential negative impacts in a compact downtown,” she said.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
Humans could become better at switching between tasks – such as shifting from emailing to taking a phone call – if they behaved more like pigeons and stopped thinking about what they are doing, research by psychologists at the University of Exeter suggests.
In an experiment that compared humans’ ability to switch between tasks with that of pigeons, the researchers found that while the birds’ way of learning to do tasks associatively caused no decrease in accuracy, humans incurred costs, in that they were slower and made more mistakes when they stopped doing one thing and started doing another.
The work of PhD student Christina Meier and Professors Stephen Lea and Ian McLaren, which was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, has been highlighted in the American Psychological Association’s series of ‘Particularly Exciting Experiments in Psychology’ (known as “PeePs”) this week (June 9).
A large body of research has shown that people are faster and more accurate when they repeat the same task than when they switch between tasks. This experiment showed that pigeons who learnt a task associatively by means of Pavlovian conditioning were able to switch between tasks without slowing down or making more errors.
Lead author Christina Meier said: “We looked at why humans make more errors when they move between two different tasks whereas pigeons don’t. Pigeons don’t analyse what they see. If they experienced a given situation before, the pigeons will repeat the behaviour that had the best outcome for them in those previous encounters. Humans don’t do this, we use rules. We make things complicated.”
Professor McLaren said: “We are not saying that pigeons are super clever. What this research shows is that we can teach pigeons to swap between tasks at no cost to their efficiency, and that they appear to be doing it without what psychologists call “executive control”. We suspect humans have access to this associative solution to the problem too and this has educational implications, skills implications and implications for our understanding of human behaviour.”
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
Humans could be more efficient if they learnt from pigeons and stopped thinking about what they are doing, according to scientists.
Switching between making a phone call and writing an email led to more mistakes as humans stopped doing one thing and started another.
Scientists at the University of Exeter carried out research to compare a human’s ability to switch between tasks with that of pigeons.
They found that while the birds’ way of learning to do tasks associatively caused no decrease in accuracy, humans incurred costs – in that they were slower and made more mistakes when they switched tasks.
Previous studies have shown that people are faster and more accurate when they repeat the same task than when they do something different.
The work of PhD student Christina Meier and professors Stephen Lea and Ian McLaren revealed that pigeons who learnt a task associatively by means of Pavlovian conditioning were able to switch between tasks without slowing down or making more errors.
Ms Meier, the lead author, said: “We looked at why humans make more errors when they move between two different tasks whereas pigeons don’t. Pigeons don’t analyse what they see.
“If they experienced a given situation before, the pigeons will repeat the behaviour that had the best outcome for them in those previous encounters. Humans don’t do this, we use rules. We make things complicated.”
Prof McLaren said: “We are not saying that pigeons are super clever. What this research shows is that we can teach pigeons to swap between tasks at no cost to their efficiency, and that they appear to be doing it without what psychologists call ‘executive control’.
“We suspect humans have access to this associative solution to the problem too and this has educational implications, skills implications and implications for our understanding of human behaviour.”
The study, Task-Switching in Pigeons: Associative Learning or Executive Control?, is published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
To prevent diseases caused due to pigeons, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has been contemplating controlling their population with the help of contraceptives called Ovistop.
There are kabutarkhanas at various places across the city, where people feed jawar, millet, and gram to pigeons. There are several complaints of people getting diseases like asthma and TB due to the droppings and feathers of the birds.
According to the civic officials, one pair of birds can produce 48 pigeons a year, which has led to overpopulation of the species in the city.
Shiv Sena corporator Abhishek Ghosalkar had proposed that the BMC should put the pigeons on birth control with the help of Ovistop. According to this method, each pigeon is fed Ovistop, a product made of corn seeds covered in Nicarbazin, which acts as a contraceptive for birds. The pill is touted as being highly effective.
In a reply given to him, the civic administration has said that the matter does not come under the jurisdiction of the BMC’s health department and belongs to the director, food and drugs administration (FDA) of the state government. “However, we have asked the FDA about implementing this method of providing food mixed with Ovistop to pigeons in the city,” said a civic official.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
A lonely woman who ignored a council order to stop feeding the pigeons in her garden must pay a £640 fine and £1,729 court costs.
Katherine Spiller, 66, said the birds were “a bit of company”, but attracted so many that neighbours complained.
Spiller, from Oxford, admitted breaking a community protection order.
The lonely woman fed pigeons in her garden for 20 years so that they could keep her company.
Pensioner Katherine Spiller began inviting the birds into her garden in 1995 by throwing seed from her bathroom window.
The 66-year-old attracted large flocks of pigeons – which are recognised as a pest in the UK – as well as smaller garden birds to keep her company.
However, over the past two decades the former librarian and administrator has amassed complaints from fed-up neighbours who can’t stand the birds which defecate on their property and dominate the garden walls like a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
Spiller has also caused a flap among shoppers in Oxford city centre where she has also been spreading the seed.
As a result, dozens of pigeons would descend daily onto the street near picturesque and historic Magdalen College as well as other locations across the city.
Following a growing number of complaints, Oxford City Council stepped in 12 months ago and ordered her to stop.
Despite this, the “habitual bird feeder” was put before magistrates again after ignoring the order between August and October last year.
Magistrates in Oxford were shown dozens of pictures of the birds sitting on the roof and ledges of Spiller’s terraced house as well as sitting on her neighbours buildings.
Jeremy Franklin, representing Oxford City Council, told magistrates that neighbours had reported her continuing to put out bird seed.
Mr Franklin added: “The defendant is an habitual feeder of birds, mostly pigeons, which congregate around her house in large numbers, causing a certain amount of distress and antagonism to the neighbours.
“The warning notice required the defendant to cease dropping bird seed or foodstuffs that would encourage birds, vermin or other animals in her garden or anywhere and to keep her garden free from weeds and plants providing shelter to vermin and other animals.
“Despite the imposition of the notice, the defendant was found to have breached it by continuing to feed the pigeons.”
Mr Franklin said the city council might have to take further action to stop Spiller from feeding the pigeons unless she could change her habits.
He added: “Those charged with dealing with this problem are at their wits end.”
A spokesman for Oxford City Council said after the hearing that neighbours were unable to use their gardens in the summer months because of the birds perching and defecating in the gardens. He added that a nuisance was being caused by bird flying into windows.
Spiller had sent a letter to the court, admitting she had failed to comply with a community protection notice and the court clerk revealed it was “very, very rambling” and mainly consisted of “poems that have been written by Ms Spiller”.
The panel of magistrates handed Spiller, who did not attend the hearing, a fine of £640 for breaching the community protection order handed out in February last year. She was also ordered to pay a £64 victim surcharge and £1,729 prosecution costs.
Speaking from her home, the keen poet said: “The birds like being fed but now you can’t feed them in town. You can’t even feed the ducks.
“There was not the same law in place at the time when I first began feeding them in 1995. I think it is a wicked law and it makes it hard on the pigeons.
“They could be an amenity for people who lack a bit of company. I don’t have a partner or children so the pigeons were my only company, and people do look for company in the pigeons.”
Spiller, who wrote a poem in 1997 entitled Pigeon Woman which reflects on her own experiences of feeding the birds, added that she would remain hopeful for the future that the law on feeding the pigeons would change.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
FEATHERS have been ruffled after peregrine falcons were encouraged to nest at Beverley Minster.
Garden bird lovers and pigeon fanciers have criticised the church for allowing the RSPB to install a bird box on top of the minster.
The box was installed this month after a pair of peregrines were spotted in residence at the minster.
But Beverley resident Annie Cox, 69, who lives near Beverley Minster, claimed the falcons are preying on song birds.
She said: “When we moved to Minster View we were delighted to wake to the dawn chorus.
“It was wonderful until summer, when falcons were introduced to control feral pigeons around the minster, we had blackbirds raising their young and variety of small birds – even the endangered sparrow.
“I’m disabled with severe osteoarthritis and had great pleasure watching birds at the feeder in the front garden. Now there are no birds to eat the seed.”
Mrs Cox said she has put up net curtains so she cannot see piles of feathers in the garden.
She said: “All that is left are piles of feathers and one pair of blackbirds and wood pigeons in our garden.”
Mrs Cox said she was distressed when she found out peregrine falcons were being encouraged to nest at the minster.
She said: “Falcons and other raptors have no place in towns and should be returned to their natural environment in the countryside where they can live on rabbits and rodents rather than decimating the small bird population, which is already at risk.”
Local pigeon fanciers are also upset about the peregrine falcons preying on other birds.
John Baker, who keeps racing pigeons, said: “It is very nice to see peregrine falcons flying, but they eat pigeons and song birds.
“They pluck them alive and pull them apart.
“Churches are not their normal habitat and I personally think the vicar is out of order letting this happen. Is he not supposed to love all creatures?”
Minster Vicar Reverend Jeremy Fletcher said: “I am not an expert, but I think sparrowhawks have much more impact on garden birds.
“The peregrines adopted the minster towers last year as a place to roost and hunt from. They came of their own accord.
“It appears peregrines are protected so if you have them you can’t do anything about that, you are required by law not to affect them.
“One of the reasons it is good for us is having peregrines at the building scares off feral pigeons, which cause damage to the stonework.”
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
FEEDING the birds costs “tuppence a bag” in the classic film Mary Poppins, but one woman has been fined £640 for putting out food for the pigeons.
Katherine Spiller was handed a community protection notice by Oxford City Council in February last year after neighbours complained about the large numbers of pigeons congregating around her home.
But the “habitual bird feeder” failed to abide by the notice and continued to put seed out in her garden in Temple Street, east Oxford, a court heard.
Magistrates were shown pictures of dozens of pigeons perched on the roof and window ledges of the terraced house, and even sitting on neighbouring buildings.
Jeremy Franklin, representing Oxford City Council, said 66-year-old Spiller flouted the notice eight times between August and October last year.
He told Oxford Magistrates’ Court on Monday how neighbours reported Spiller to the council for continuing to put out bird seed.
Mr Franklin added: “The defendant is an habitual feeder of birds, mostly pigeons, which congregate around her house in large numbers, causing a certain amount of distress and antagonism to the neighbours.
“The warning notice required the defendant to cease dropping bird seed or foodstuffs that would encourage birds, vermin or other animals in her garden or anywhere and to keep her garden free from weeds and plants providing shelter to vermin and other animals.
“Despite the imposition of the notice, the defendant was found to have breached it by continuing to feed the pigeons.”
Mr Franklin said the city council might have to take further action to stop Spiller from feeding the pigeons unless she could change her habits.
He added: “Those charged with dealing with this problem are at their wits end.”
The court heard Spiller had sent a letter to the court, admitting she had failed to comply with a community protection notice.
But the court clerk said the letter was “very, very rambling” and mainly consisted of “poems that have been written by Ms Spiller”.
The panel of magistrates handed Spiller – who did not attend the hearing – a fine of £640 for breaching the order.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
Police arrested a Gonzales man accused of attempted strong-arm robbery after a foot chase Monday in a residential neighborhood near Sunnyslope Road.
Police arrested Elliot Turpin, 25, on suspicion of residential burglary and attempted strong-arm robbery after a foot chase and neighborhood search, according to a statement from Hollister police.
According to the statement:
On the morning of February 22, 2015, officers responded to two separate theft-related calls in the 1400 block of Sunnyslope Rd. and Diablo Rd. One of those incidents was an attempted strong-arm robbery. Officers conducted investigations and were following up on leads in those cases.
At 11:00 am officers were called to a nearby neighborhood in the 1600 block of Bodega Ct. Officers responded to a report of an interrupted residential burglary. Officers descended on the area and located a suspect, later identified as Elliot Turpin, jumping fences away from the victim’s house towards neighboring residences. Officers purusued Turpin on foot over fences and through backyards. Respondin officers, with the assistance of deputies from the San Benito County Sheriff’s Office, surrounded the neighborhood and began conducting a yard-to-yard search for Turpin. Turpin continued trying to evade officers by jumping between backyards, but he was soon cornered and arrested without further incident.
Officers were able to link Turpin to the theft related incidents earlier in the day, along with fresh residential burglaries. Turpin is on probation in Monterey County for a prior burglary conviction.
Turpin was booked at the San Benito County Jail on charges of burglary, attempted robbery, possession of stolen property, resisting arrest, and probation violations.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
Animal welfare officers who rescued a lost pigeon in East Lothian were in for a surprise when they discovered in belonged to the Queen.
The Scottish SPCA was called when the exhausted bird was spotted at Traprain Terrace in Haddington on February 2.
Staff traced it back to its owner and the racing pigeon has now been returned to the royal loft on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk.
The bird was identified by a ring number on its leg.
Connie O’Neill, Scottish SPCA animal rescue officer , said: “I’ve rescued many pigeons during my career with the Scottish SPCA but this was certainly a first for me.
“I was really excited when I found out it was one of the Queen’s racing pigeons.
“We were able to identity where the pigeon had come from using the ring number on its leg and arrangements were made for it to be collected.
“The poor bird was exhausted and it was a cold, dark and windy night when it was found. Thankfully someone contacted us as it would have been very easy prey for a cat.
“It’s quite common for racing pigeons to lose their way and become too tired to take off again. I’m really glad we were able to help in this instance.”
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
People offering grains to feral Common Pigeons (Columba livia) at designated kabutarkhanas or illegitimate feeding places are a common sight these days. It may seem to be a noble deed and is also perceived to be so by many. Hundreds of pigeon-lovers are seen flocking around the grain sellers to purchase the grains to be fed to the pigeons. Mostly such feeding stations are adjacent to places of worship. There are many people who have created mini feeding stations in the balconies, on the window ledges or terraces.
A large number of people feed pigeons for religious reasons, thinking that by feeding pigeons they are helping the birds and perhaps this helps in washing away their sins. People also believe that feeding pigeons brings prosperity to those who feed them. There are others who feed pigeons thinking that pigeons are hungry, need food and would not survive unless fed by them. Grains are purchased and literally scattered in heaps for the pigeons to feed. Such artificial feeding has led to overpopulation of pigeons that is much beyond the carrying capacity of any place.
AT A GLANCE
The global population estimation of Common Pigeons is c.26,00,00,000 (as per BirdLife International and IUCN).
In one of the citizen science programmes launched to monitor common bird species of India, Common Pigeon topped the list with House Crow following at number two.
It is quite obvious that pigeons are doing very well in cities like Mumbai, thanks to the compassion of many citizens.
Do you wonder what keeps the populations of bird species in the wild balanced, be it a pigeon or an eagle? Food chain, to a great extent, regulates relative abundance of each species based on their reproduction, deaths and predator-prey relationship. In case of feral pigeons, in cities like Mumbai, there is a problem of plenty. In the wild, the Common Pigeon (previously known as the Blue Rock Pigeon) is seen around cliffs and rocky areas, which they prefer for nesting. However, in cities and towns their preference for naturally occurring cliffs has been replaced by parapets, AC compressor units and any such flat surface in city buildings where pigeons seek shelter. Due to the constant availability of food, pigeons have started nesting throughout the year; unlike in the wild where nesting season coincides with the food availability in nature. Predatory birds help in keeping the population of pigeons in control by feeding on them in the wild. But unfortunately urbanisation has practically wiped out the predatory birds from most city limits.
Had it been not for our compassionate feeding, the pigeons would have survived anyway but in lesser numbers, enough to be sustained on the natural food availability in and around the cities. By providing them with ready food, pigeons in cities have lost their natural ability to scavenge and survive on their own. Scavenging for food is an important exercise for wild birds that they must indulge in. Such ‘compassionate’ feeding may attract birds (and also rodents like rats and mice) close to you but may also result in nutritional deficiencies in birds. Let the birds decide what they wish to feed on instead of us deciding what they should feed on!
The population explosion of pigeons in cities and towns is a serious trend that is slated to grow in future as there is no dearth of food offered to them and nesting sites in cities. Lots of pigeons around may make some people happy but doctors and veterinarians have often expressed concerns over this issue and advise refraining from feeding pigeons.
Dr Alice Bacon at Fraser and Fraser Vets Ltd, Dingwall, Scotland.
Many people enjoy feeding and watching wild birds, but are unaware that their actions may inadvertently cause more harm than good; supplementary feeding supports unnaturally large pigeon populations, and this over-crowding can cause disease outbreaks in pigeons, other wild birds and humans.”
Keeping leftover food or other food stuff in the balcony for other species of ‘hungry’ birds should also be reassessed and probably discouraged. Veterinarians warn that such bird feeders may act as a nodal point of disease spread to other species of birds for emerging diseases of infectious nature.
Dr Olga Nicolas of Vallcalent Wildlife Rescue Centre in Spain.
It may have a zoonotic risk like Salmonella, Chlamydia, hemoparasites though hippoboscid flies etc.”
As the faecal matter gets dried up it forms fomites which could travel in air facilitating spread of infection. Symptoms of coughing, rhinitis, arthritis and headache could easily be encountered. People in the vicinity of pigeons and their droppings are at the highest risk of catching infection. Other species of birds are at great risk of mutually getting infected as well and it would make the infection to persist for longer. On the other hand, birds quickly get used to our food, which obviously is not their natural food. Also, birds not feeding naturally might affect the ecological food chain as they may not eat the fruit which only germinates when it passes through that bird’s intestine. Our ignorance in these matters can have serious consequences that we may not be even aware of. Then why should we interfere with their routine of scavenging for food? “The natural balance of wildlife populations is very sensitive, and we must be careful of how our interactions affect them”, says Dr Bacon.
Don’t get discouraged as a bird lover! You certainly have a role to play as there are many ways of helping in the conservation of birds. Misplaced compassion is not conservation and often does not help. Planting, nurturing and protecting plant species that provide shade, perches, nesting places, fruits and flowers for wild birds is a more sustainable and a logical way to help in bird conservation than artificially feeding wild birds. There are several other ways of getting involved in the conservation of birds. But of course, it requires you to move out of the comfort of your homes and venture out into the wilderness.
As long-term measures, getting involved in wildlife conservation agencies in personal capacity as volunteers, supporting the community at the fringe of protected areas and organising nature clubs and awareness trails on bird conservation for students, are options which you could consider to make an impact on overall bird conservation.
We sincerely appeal to the concerned authorities to take note of the potential health hazards and ecological ramifications associated with feral pigeons and take immediate steps to close down the kabutarkhanas and other pigeon feeding stations. The surplus population of feral pigeons will thus move out elsewhere in the quest for food. Use of some anti-fertility drug or some such means to control the population growth among the pigeons without harming them could also be an option to be considered in controlling the growing pigeon populations.
Dr Barbara Vogler from National Reference Centre for Poultry and Rabbit Diseases, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
The problem of city pigeons is well recognised in Switzerland since many years. Most people are aware that they should not feed pigeons and commonly only elderly people still do it and we do have population control programmes in Bern and Zurich.”
Anti-fertility drugs, if given orally as meals, would have to be assessed for their impact on other birds too as consumption by other bird species can’t be totally ruled out. Impact of such anti-fertility drugs would need to be assessed for any possible toxic effects down the food chain too. In the larger interest of pigeons and humans, people from all communities should come together to sensitively address this problem.
Kedar Gore is a biologist and wildlife conservationists by profession for over two decades. Dr. Naveen Pandey is veterinarian with an expertise and experience in rescue and treatment of wildlife species
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
A New Jersey teenager hired to humanely kill birds after a Philadelphia Gun Club pigeon shoot is now facing animal cruelty charges — after the incident in Bensalem, Pa. was captured on video by an animal rights group.
Steve Hindi of Showing Animals Respect and Kindness said one of the group’s investigators was filming the shoot from across the Delaware River as part of its ongoing effort to monitor the Philadelphia Gun Club’s activities.
The two organizations have been involved in litigation and are currently operating under a consent decree that required some concessions from the gun club — including that the gun club make someone available to quickly, humanely euthanize birds after shoots, Hindi said.
In the video, someone in a red hood is seen throwing rocks at the birds, and then flinging and kicking the birds themselves. He appears to be alone and unsupervised. He has been identified in news reports as being from Bridgeton, but police have not released his identity because of his age.
SHARK provided the video to police, but alleges the gun club didn’t cooperate — telling police the club didn’t have anyone in that area during the shoot and didn’t know the individual involved.
“All we can say now is that we can’t identify who the person is, and we’re cooperating with the police investigation,” attorney Sean Corr, representing the gun club, told Philly.com earlier this month. “It appears that he was down range during active shooting, and we don’t station anybody in front of the firing line. That just adds to the mystery.”
Hindi told New Jersey 101.5 his organization then provided police with further footage — showing the person in the red hood coming out of the gun club’s property and associating with its members.
“The Philadelphia Gun Club cooperated with the police and does not believe the individual would have been apprehended without our cooperation,” Corr is quoted telling Philly.com in a newer report. A call to Corr by New Jersey 101.5 has not yet been returned.
Hindi called that an “amazing turnaround.”
“They want credit for having put a kid out there by himself, a minor, torturing animals without supervision, after initially saying they don’t know who he is,” Hindi said.
In the Philly.com report, Bensalem Police Lt. William McVey said pigeon shoots are legal in Pennsylvania (though SHARK disputes that) — “so there’s nothing we can do about that. Our concern is the treatment of the animal once it is shot, to make sure it’s (euthanasia) done as humanely and swiftly as possible. In this case, it crossed the line.”
A call to Bensalem Police has not yet been returned.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
Apparently, it’s completely legal to gun down live birds released from boxes at the Philadelphia Gun Club, but hiring this teenager to end the lives of birds that were missed is downright cruel. What activists from SHARK seem to be forgetting, is that regardless of this kid’s actions, those birds were set to die.
When the group filmed the kid chasing down the birds and using beach side objects like sticks and rocks to kill them, they brought focus to the treatment of animals instead of the use. “The shoots are legal in Pennsylvania, so there’s nothing we can do about that. Our concern is the treatment of the animal once it is shot, to make sure it’s (euthanasia) done as humanely and swiftly as possible,” Police Lt. William McVey told the news outlet. “In this case, it crossed the line.” The argument here is that death is fine, as long as it’s swift. But why isn’t the argument that we shouldn’t be killing these pigeons at all?
God dammit – those birds were property of the hunting club, and people expect them to be taken care of! An attorney for SHARK said, ”It shows that whatever steps the gun club has taken up until now to keep its promise have been inadequate, so the Bensalem Police Department’s decision to file charges doesn’t satisfy SHARK’s concern that future shoots held at the gun club also won’t comply with the agreement. Right now, SHARK is exploring their options in pursuing an appropriate remedy, including returning to court.” How can we ever trust these hunters again?
Really, attorneys should be working on getting rid of the entire club, their hosting of these semiannual shoots, and the unnecessary use of these pigeons for sport. And when it comes to educating a seventeen year old on animal rights, we ought the talk veganism and not “nice” ways to put an animal down.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
The St Regis Saadiyat has employed new staff in the battle against unsightly pigeon droppings – a full-time falconer and his birds.
Alex Louw flies his specially trained falcons on weekdays to ensure that about 300 pigeons that took residence at the five-star St Regis since it opened start looking for other, more hospitable dwellings.
To achieve this, the South African falconer flies his eight peregrine falcons, the natural prey of which are smaller birds.
“They don’t kill anything but I let the birds fly for hours a day, and over months they now see the hotel as their territory. Their presence alone deters the pigeons from being here,” Mr Louw said.
He will randomly select the birds on any given day so that the pigeons, which are quite smart birds, never feel like they have quite outsmarted the falcons.
The technique has achieved great results.
Marwan Fadel, a sales director at the St Regis, said within just a few months the island hotel went from 300 resident pigeons to fewer than 20 – results conventional methods failed to achieve.
“Since day one we’ve had a lot of pigeons and that means you’re dealing with a mess,” Mr Fadel said. “We tried lots of tools, such as spikes, and they weren’t working.”
Aside from creating an almost prison-like look, spikes on ridges, the most common deterrent for birds, simply do not work as pigeons will eventually find ways to build nests in between the points, and sometimes on top of them.
Gels, the other method, are environmental hazards that could be harmful to endangered animals’ ecosystem on the protected Saadiyat Island.
So they approached Mr Louw and told him of the problem. He began training birds, and tried out a dozen from his roster of 38 before he found the right ones.
“We couldn’t have them hunt the actual pigeons, despite it being the birds’ instinct we thought it wouldn’t be great if pigeons were being eaten by falcons in a family setting,” he said.
Mr Louw has been using falcons for bird control for 25 of his 40 years in falconry.
“It’s a very old idea. I used to do this 25 years ago in South Africa for the military,” he said. “They had problems with birds on the runways getting in engines of planes, and so we started a falconry project there and we saved them US$2 million (Dh7.34m) in the first year just in bird strikes.”
Mr Louw is passionate about falconry and gives guests at the hotel an introduction.
“After flying one of my birds, it sometimes takes me an hour to walk from the beach to my car because I get stopped so much,” he said. “And I love it. I carry extra gloves so that the kids, anyone really, can hold the falcons.”
Mr Louw has become a hotel attraction, and regular mention of him and his birds on Trip Advisor has been common among the hotel’s almost 2,000 reviews.
“It’s become a hotel attraction,” said Mr Fadel. “I think we’re really on to something.”
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
Bald eagles aren’t just an iconic national symbol south of the border — here in Toronto, they’re the noble and brave protectors of garbage dumps.
Don’t blame the raccoons for this one.
ACTION is being taken to curb the amount of pigeon mess being left outside a Halstead shop.
Circle Line services were out of action after netting to stop pigeons nestling on the tracks collapsed at High Street Kensington at around 4.25pm. A train in front of the netting, and the entire station, was evacuated.One enraged user tweeted: “It is absurd that some obstruction whatever it may be is causing an entire line to go down!”
A dispute between neighbors in Palm Coast’s C-Section over the copious presence of Purple Martin birds and involving a drone, a laser pointer, the daily Apocalypse Now-like broadcasting of loud predatory bird sounds and complaints to local authorities, has escalated into a lawsuit from one neighbor against another.
At first the whole thing seemed preposterous. No way this could happen. Tom Roden, 66 at the time, was standing at the door of his home near Manchester, England. “I was just setting out on a walk with my dog when I saw him,” he told a reporter. “I recognized him straight away because of his white tail feathers.”
Pigeons, squirrels, raccoons and deer all have something in common in the City of Victoria’s downtown and environs: They are not to be fed.
Humans could become better at switching between tasks – such as shifting from emailing to taking a phone call – if they behaved more like pigeons and stopped thinking about what they are doing, research by psychologists at the University of Exeter suggests.
Humans could be more efficient if they learnt from pigeons and stopped thinking about what they are doing, according to scientists.
To prevent diseases caused due to pigeons, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has been contemplating controlling their population with the help of contraceptives called Ovistop.
A lonely woman who ignored a council order to stop feeding the pigeons in her garden must pay a £640 fine and £1,729 court costs.
FEATHERS have been ruffled after peregrine falcons were encouraged to nest at Beverley Minster.
FEEDING the birds costs “tuppence a bag” in the classic film Mary Poppins, but one woman has been fined £640 for putting out food for the pigeons.
Police arrested a Gonzales man accused of attempted strong-arm robbery after a foot chase Monday in a residential neighborhood near Sunnyslope Road.
Animal welfare officers who rescued a lost pigeon in East Lothian were in for a surprise when they discovered in belonged to the Queen.
People offering grains to feral Common Pigeons (Columba livia) at designated kabutarkhanas or illegitimate feeding places are a common sight these days. It may seem to be a noble deed and is also perceived to be so by many. Hundreds of pigeon-lovers are seen flocking around the grain sellers to purchase the grains to be fed to the pigeons. Mostly such feeding stations are adjacent to places of worship. There are many people who have created mini feeding stations in the balconies, on the window ledges or terraces.
A New Jersey teenager hired to humanely kill birds after a Philadelphia Gun Club pigeon shoot is now facing animal cruelty charges — after the incident in Bensalem, Pa. was captured on video by an animal rights group.
Apparently, it’s completely legal to gun down live birds released from boxes at the Philadelphia Gun Club, but hiring this teenager to end the lives of birds that were missed is downright cruel. What activists from SHARK seem to be forgetting, is that regardless of this kid’s actions, those birds were set to die.
The St Regis Saadiyat has employed new staff in the battle against unsightly pigeon droppings – a full-time falconer and his birds.