Hundreds of trained homing pigeons were burned to death in their rooftop coop as a massive inferno tore through five Brooklyn buildings Tuesday night, officials and residents said Wednesday.
The fire broke out at a building on DeKalb Avenue between Wilson and Knickerbocker avenues in Bushwick at around 10 p.m. and quickly engulfed several other surrounding structures.
Gil Areiliares, who had maintained the coop for more than 20 years, kept at least 500 pigeons atop 1427 DeKalb Ave., where there is now a charred, gaping hole.
Only about 20 pigeons survived. They were spotted circling above the charred and destroyed buildings Wednesday afternoon.
“I don’t know how to put it in words — I’m sick,” a distraught Areiliares told The Post. “My heart is broken.”
Pigeons from the coops caught up in the fire are seen flying in Bushwick before the massive blaze.
Video courtesy of Abigale Hoke
About 200 firefighters battled the flames for more than three hours before bringing it under control by 1:30 a.m. Wednesday.
The blaze left 11 people injured and dozens of families displaced, officials said. The Red Cross helped to relocate families.
Four of the injured were taken to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center for treatment, including one firefighter who suffered minor injuries and a civilian who was seriously wounded.
Seven people were treated at the scene for minor injuries and smoke inhalation, fire officials said.
Edwin Torres, whose relatives live in one of the burnt buildings, said he was told the pigeons were “screaming like babies” during the fire.
Neighbors recalled marveling at the pigeons as the flock flew high above the area before returning to their roof.
“They used to fly the pigeons at sunset — it was so beautiful,” said Abigale Hoke, who set up a GoFundMe account to help raise money for displaced victims of the blaze.
“RIP #bushwick pigeons,” posted Twitter user @4rilla along with a 10-second video of the flock.
The FDNY was still investigating cause of the fire Wednesday.
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.
Pigeon droppings harbour a fungus that could lead to hardening of lung tissues in humans and controlling the infection in the birds will help in reducing the incidence of lung diseases in Mumbai, said doctors at a conference in the city to discuss on zoonotic diseases or infections that can be passed between animals and humans.
Doctors stated that the increase in the number of people with interstitial lung disease, or stiffening of the organ, in the city can be linked to the nesting of pigeons.
“We had a hospital employee who after retirement developed difficulty in breathing. As she had a family history of asthma, we first suspected that,” said Dr Amita Athavle, head and professor, chest medicine, KEM Hospital, Parel.
“She was treated and once she went home her symptoms reappeared. She told us that her landlord feeds pigeons, which was actually the cause for her medical condition.” Dr Athavle prescribed the patient to change her residence. “She shifted to Vashi and her symptoms disappeared. To prevent such cases, we need to find a solution to treat the pigeons so that they don’t spread the disease to humans,” said Athavle.
Experts said that several countries to reduce the transmission of such lung conditions owing to pigeons’ advocate fertility control pills to reduce their population. “As pigeons have a 45-day memory, we ask our patients to spread something bitter around their nesting place to stop them from coming,” said Dr Athavle , adding that people with compromised immunity are the worst affected. Doctors said that elderly, people who have undergone a transplant, children and those with compromised lungs can easily develop the condition.
Dr Pratit Samdani, physician, Breach Candy Hospital, said that in several patients’ exposure to pigeon dropping is the cause for developing pneumonia. “Some patient even land up on ventilator support because of pneumonia which is caused by the exposure to such droppings,” said Dr Samdani.
According to Dr Om Shrivastav, infectious disease consultant who was speaking at the conference, adult vaccination is the way forward.
“Childhood vaccination will not necessarily give you prolonged lifelong immunity. Vaccination against influenza is a must,” said Dr Shrivastav.
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.
Temporary work to address the pigeon infestation and roof repairs at the San Fernando Magistrates’ Court is expected to begin today.
This was confirmed by the Judiciary in a statement yesterday, following complaints by court users and workers about the current situation at the court building.
Last week, reporters were forced to abandon the press table in the First Magistrates’ Court after pigeon droppings fell on them from a gaping hole in the roof above their heads. And earlier this week, pigeon poop fell on the clothes of another reporter and on a clerical worker.
Pigeons flying through the court rooms while court is in session and intense heat have become a “normal thing” in the courthouse. There is also a large yellow tarpaulin covering the dilapidated roof of the building.
“We are so fed up complaining. We don’t know what to do again,” an employee told the T&T Guardian.
The release stated that the Judiciary, having recognised the age of and the adverse conditions plaguing the court, has over the past years undertaken a number of short-term measures and embarked upon plans for longer-term solutions to provide a safe and comfortable working environment for its staff and for court users.
It stated that a structural survey of the court’s roof was undertaken in 2014 and a consulting engineer recommended work on its structural framework, as well as the replacement of the roof sheets.
The Central Tenders Board has been engaged to tender for design, engineering, cost consultancies and project management/supervision for this project, the release stated.
However, the Judiciary said the work will only be undertaken when the building is vacated.
Court operations are expected to be relocated to a property at 1-3 Court Street, San Fernando, which is currently being prepared. It is expected to be ready for occupation by year’s end, the Judiciary confirmed.
“In the interim, the issues at the current court location, such as the pigeon infestation and the need to undertake temporary roof repairs, are being addressed.”
The Judiciary further stated that work was expected to begin today and would include the installation of louvered windows to prevent the entry of pigeons to the courtrooms.
The Judiciary also said yesterday that progress had been made in the upgrade of several courts, including at Mayaro, Siparia and Princes Town.
The Chaguanas Magistrates Court, on which extensive work has been done, is expected to be completed and re-opened within the next six weeks, it 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.
PANAJI: Pigeon population is growing in the city without any growth in awareness among the people that pigeon droppings can cause a lung-related disease.
According to a Mumbai-based news report, dried droppings of pigeons contain spores, which if inhaled may lead to respiratory illness. Their faecal matter is highly acidic and can destroy buildings and monuments.
The report has further adds that daily exposure to pigeons can lead to progressive symptoms like irreversible lung fibrosis and even death.
People feed pigeons as charity, for religious reasons or fun or just because others are doing so, but contact with their droppings could pose a health risk.
Hypersensitivity pneumonitis, a human disease, is known to be caused by repetitive inhalation of antigenic agents found in pigeon droppings.
A lack of awareness on how pigeon droppings can be a health hazard can become a hurdle in diagnosis for doctors.
A well-fed pigeon on an average dispenses up to 11.5 kg of droppings a year. The pigeons are often found sitting on TV antennas, atop AC units, window sills, housetops, eaves, power lines, and in ducts and vents.
They often make nests in buildings and rapidly reproduce. Pigeon droppings are often found deposited on park benches, statues, and cars, and are an aesthetic problem.
To bird lovers, pigeons are hardy survivors in a concrete city; many feel that caring for pigeons is a humane thing to do. But, to households, corporations housed in gleaming high rises and health experts, these birds are pests that test ‘our commitment to cleanliness and disease control.’
There is no NGO taking care of the birds like pigeons, like some NGOs care for dogs, and surprisingly none of the government authorities – forest department and animal husbandry department have woken up to the pigeon menace.
The forest department claimed of not receiving a single complaint of pigeon menace in the city, but urged the residents to avoid feeding pigeons that can backfire, resulting in a serious menace.
An official said that residents need to take long-term measures by blocking their nesting sites and installing ultra sonic sound system to frighten them up.
The CCP said that they do not have any measures to put curbs on unregulated bird feeding that increases pest menace as such food meant for pigeons invariably attracts rats.
Pigeon-feeding stations are slowly mushrooming in the city. It gets started with feeding the birds with grains and leftover food; and while the flock grows larger, another station emerges a little away on the other side of the road. Often we find pavements and roads with mounds of uneaten grains, bread and rice, which attract other animals too.
In the city, one see some major pigeon-feeding stations near Rameshwar Lodge, Hotel Nova Goa, Hotel Kamat, municipal garden, behind Rebello building, new CCP market area and Tonca near Thomas Garage.
These birds are known to return to the place where they are fed and, according to some studies, organise their day around feeding.
Bird experts feel that unregulated practice of feeding and enough spots for nesting are the main reasons for the pigeon population explosion. The other reason being the absence of natural predators.
“The issue of their population has arose as people started leaving grains and food for them. They no longer have to make an effort to find food and a good nesting area, which has made them prolific breeders,” said president of Goa Bird Conservation Network, Parag Rangnekar, who is involved in bird conservation efforts.
“Unless there is a study done to prove that pigeon droppings cause incidences of respiratory problem then it is wrong to blame pigeons for that,” he added.
A resident of Tonca, Ismail Nawar, called for a plan to control the pigeon population.
“People should also be discouraged from feeding pigeons in public places,” Nawar said, adding that it is the only way to prevent overfeeding.
Sanjay Sarmalkar, from St Inez, said that not only are the bird droppings are health hazard, they also do some serious damage to vehicle paint.
“I have to daily wash my car which remains covered with droppings, otherwise, these acidic and grainy droppings can stain and take the gloss off the paint if left for too long,” Sarmalkar added.
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.
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.
Hundreds of trained homing pigeons were burned to death in their rooftop coop as a massive inferno tore through five Brooklyn buildings Tuesday night, officials and residents said Wednesday.
Pigeon droppings harbour a fungus that could lead to hardening of lung tissues in humans and controlling the infection in the birds will help in reducing the incidence of lung diseases in Mumbai, said doctors at a conference in the city to discuss on zoonotic diseases or infections that can be passed between animals and humans.
Temporary work to address the pigeon infestation and roof repairs at the San Fernando Magistrates’ Court is expected to begin today.
PANAJI: Pigeon population is growing in the city without any growth in awareness among the people that pigeon droppings can cause a lung-related disease.
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!”
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.”