by Pigeon Patrol | Dec 17, 2019 | Bird Netting, Bird Spikes, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons in the News, UltraSonic Bird Control
Fifteen-year-old Aurora Milbrandt impressed Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark with a presentation at city hall on how to deal with pesky pigeons in a humane way.
Milbrandt appeared at Monday’s meeting of city council’s environment, utilities and community services committee to address a request to ban the use of neurotoxins to kill nuisance pigeons.
“Wow,” Clark said after Milbrandt’s presentation. “For a Grade 10 student, that was a very well presented set of arguments and solutions.”
Milbrandt targeted the product Avitrol, saying contrary to what some believe the chemical agent can result in a “very painful death” for pigeons and other small animals that consume it.
She suggested the city consider euthanizing pigeons as a last resort and focus on other measures — educating the public not to feed pigeons, using a birth control product to make female pigeons barren and employing a predator like a hawk or falcon.
The committee heard that the City of Saskatoon no longer uses Avitrol. Clark asked whether any city has banned its use throughout the community, including by private citizens and businesses.
City lawyer Blair Bleakney told the committee the city could enact a bylaw to govern chemical use on private property, but advised against a ban on a specific product.
The committee voted unanimously to direct the administration to study a pest management strategy for the city.
The city contracts out pest management, including pigeon control, to private contractors and Avitrol has been used in the past, a city report says.
The city stopped using Avitrol after Jan Shaddick, executive director of Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation, appeared before the same committee in May to request the city discontinue the product’s use, the report adds.
The city hired a contractor this year to euthanize about 1,500 pigeons that had made their home inside cavities in the piers of the Senator Sidney L. Buckwold Bridge, the report notes. In September, the city said 2,300 pigeons were euthanized.
Angela Gardiner, the city’s general manager of utilities and environment, said there is an understanding between city hall and the contractor that animals will be euthanized according to Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA) standards.
“The CVMA holds that when animals are euthanized, death must be quick using a method that causes the least possible pain and distress,” Gardiner wrote in an email.
She did not know the exact method of euthanasia used for the Buckwold Bridge pigeons. Grating was installed during rehabilitation work on the bridge to ensure pigeons do not return to the cavities.
The company working on the bridge removed about 635 tonnes of pigeon waste from the cavities.
ptank@postmedia.com
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.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Bird Gone, Pigeon Gone, Seagull Gone, Pigeon problems, pigeon spikes, 1-877-4NO-BIRD, 4-S Gel, Bird Control, Pigeon Control, bird repellent, Bird Spikes, sonic bird repellent, stainless steel bird spikes, bird spikes Vancouver, Ultra Sonic Bird Control, Bird Netting, Plastic Bird Spikes, Canada bird spike deterrents, Pigeon Pests, B Gone Pigeon, Pigeon Patrol, pest controller, pest control operator, pest control technician, Pigeon Control Products, humane pigeon spikes, pigeon deterrents, pigeon traps, Pigeon repellents, Sound & Laser Deterrents, wildlife control, raccoon, skunk, squirrel deterrent, De-Fence Spikes, Dragons Den, Canada bird spikes, Canada pigeon, pigeon control, pidgon patrol, pidgon. Kill pigeons, crow, starling
by Pigeon Patrol | Dec 16, 2019 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Bird Spikes, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons in the News
The Standing Policy Committee on Environment, Utilities and Corporate Services on Monday reviewed a report prepared in response to a request by Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation.
The centre asked the city to stop using the neurotoxin, saying it’s an inhumane way to control pests.
Around 2,300 pigeons put down, 635,000 kg of feces cleaned from Saskatoon bridge
According to a description on Avitrol’s website, the product works by causing “behaviours similar to an epileptic seizure.”
“This may include flying erratically, vocalizing, trembling, dilation of the pupils and other symptoms,” the description says.
Witnessing these behaviours can encourage unaffected birds to leave a location.
“Flocks can be frightened away from sites little or no mortality.”
According to the report, Avitrol is no longer used in other cities including Halifax, San Francisco and New York.
The committee heard how in the past the city used Avitrol to remove pests, but currently there are no sites where the city or its contractors are using the poison.
However the city does not have anything in writing that bans private use of Avitrol.
City hall to pursue pest management strategy for Saskatoon
Concern is raised over the city’s use of neurotoxins to control pigeon populations
PHIL TANK, SASKATOON STARPHOENIX
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.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Bird Gone, Pigeon Gone, Pigeon problems, pigeon spikes, 1-877-4NO-BIRD, 4-S Gel, Bird Control, Pigeon Control, bird repellent, Bird Spikes, sonic bird repellent, stainless steel bird spikes, bird spikes Vancouver, Ultra Sonic Bird Control, Bird Netting, Plastic Bird Spikes, Canada bird spike deterrents, Pigeon Pests, B Gone Pigeon, Pigeon Patrol, pest controller, pest control operator, pest control technician, Pigeon Control Products, humane pigeon spikes, pigeon deterrents, pigeon traps, Pigeon repellents, Sound & Laser Deterrents, wildlife control, raccoon, skunk, squirrel deterrent, De-Fence Spikes, Dragons Den.
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 20, 2019 | Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Bird Spikes, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings
Canadian woman battling crippling disease caused by pigeon poop
PETER POWER – THE GLOBE AND MAIL
In the span of a few weeks, Erica Richards has been transformed from a vibrant 23-year-old woman who loved nature to a person battling for her life.
In early January, the Fredericton woman contracted a potentially fatal condition called cryptococcal meningitis, a fungal disease carried in the feces of pigeons.
The debilitating illness attacks the spine and brain, causing severe swelling. It left her confined to a hospital bed in a state of delirium for weeks.
But the most devastating side effect is that Ms. Richards is now blind.
“Be aware of this disease. It could kill a child in a heartbeat,” Ms. Richards said in an interview from her hospital bed.
“It could kill a senior in a heartbeat without you even having to worry about the symptoms. It comes on that fast. If you don’t realize the symptoms, it could kill you, too.”
Her emotional warning comes on the heels of city council’s approval earlier this month of a recommendation that it toughen its animal control bylaw to allow for fines for feeding pigeons. Once the amendment is drafted and declared law, it will give the city’s bylaw enforcement officers the power to ticket and fine offenders.
Ms. Richards said she decided to go public about her illness after learning about a recent newspaper story about a problem with pigeon poop in the city.
“Please don’t feed the pigeons,” she said. “Try to shoo them away if you see them. … It (the disease) is horrible. The pain that you get from this disease is crippling.
“The after-effects are with you for life and you just can’t stop thinking about it. I just want other people to know and try to stay away from pigeons.”
Oddly enough, Ms. Richards said she has no recollection of ever being anywhere near pigeons.
“I am still wondering to this day where I got it,” she said. “I could have stepped in it and brought it into the home. I just don’t know.”
Ms. Richards said the symptoms started with a migraine headache that wouldn’t go away. She was admitted to hospital on Feb. 10 after many days of intense head pain. Shortly after, she went into a coma-like state.
“When I woke up I thought I had a mask over my eyes, but I was wrong. I was blind. I was recently told that I will be blind for the rest of my life. This is a tough thing for a 23-year-old to go through. … My world crumbled around me.”
Ms. Richards said the odds of surviving the disease are 50-50.
“However, I managed to make it through,” she said, battling tears. “I don’t know how but I am still here, and I am glad because I get to warn everyone else of this.”
Cristin Muecke, the Health Department’s regional medical officer, confirmed the disease is often associated with pigeon droppings. She said the illness can’t be spread person to person and is more common with someone who has immune problems.
Ms. Richards, however, said she has never had a problem with her immune system and that’s what’s so puzzling about contracting the affliction.
“I do not want anyone else to suffer this agonizing disease and I ask anyone who is feeding pigeons to stop,” she said. “It’s not just a matter of keeping your neighbourhood clean … it’s a matter of keeping people healthy.”
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.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Bird Gone, Pigeon Gone, Pigeon problems, pigeon spikes, 1-877-4NO-BIRD, 4-S Gel, Bird Control, Pigeon Control, bird repellent, Bird Spikes, sonic bird repellent, stainless steel bird spikes, bird spikes Vancouver, Ultra Sonic Bird Control, Bird Netting, Plastic Bird Spikes, Canada bird spike deterrents, Pigeon Pests, B Gone Pigeon, Pigeon Patrol, pest controller, pest control operator, pest control technician, Pigeon Control Products, humane pigeon spikes, pigeon deterrents, pigeon traps, Pigeon repellents, Sound & Laser Deterrents, wildlife control, raccoon, skunk, squirrel deterrent, De-Fence Spikes, Dragons Den.
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 19, 2019 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting
Brazen Pigeons feeding directly from the table.
Open-Air Pigeon Nest Closes Popular Mission Taqueria
by Chris Roberts | September 13, 2011
Pigeons are more than rats with wings. Birds of the family columbidae are also reasons not to eat at Taqueria Vallarta on 24th Street — or, more precisely, why nobody has eaten at Taqueria Vallarta since Sept. 8th, and why nobody may eat there until a Department of Public Health hearing tomorrow.
It appears a pair of diners were chowing down on their favorite Mission District Mexican food selections — the street-style tacos served until after 3 a.m. are particularly bomb, we hear — when they noticed something was afoot. Or rather, a-wing: there was a pigeon nest in the restaurant’s rafters, and pigeons flying in and out of the eatery via a hole in the roof, according to a complaint on file with DPH.
“There were pigeons flying in and out of the restaurant,” the unnamed resident said, according to the complaint. “The peigons [sic] were leaving peigon [sic] waste visibly around the restaurant.” (You can read the entire complaint here.)
That was on Sept. 6. On Sept. 8, a DPH inspector visited for a reinspection and ordered the restaurant immediately closed after finding six bags of trash in a storage closet and what was delicately described as a “cockroach infestation.” (You can read the inspector’s entire report here.)
This isn’t the first time Vallarta has had to close due to an excess in, shall we say, live animal culture: the eatery also had to close in 2006 thanks to a roach population.
All this will soon be taken care of, according to restaurant owner Juan Rosas Lopez, reached via telephone at the eatery on Tuesday.
“We’re closed to do renovations to the restuarant,” said Lopez, who, God bless him, talked to us after we exhausted our Spanish with repeated “periodico, noticias, noticias,” to one of his employees. “We’re fixing the walls, the bars, the counters,” Lopez said. “We’re doing something nice.”
Lopez says he’ll be able to reopen in a couple of days, pending results on the hearing.
Whatever problems he’s had doesn’t appear to have cut into his bottom line much — another Vallarta location recently opened on 16th Street, and the taqueria’s Yelp rating is a four out of five stars.
But the pigeons? That’s a new one. “‘Pigeon problems’ abound in this city and all cities throughout the US and the world,” observed DPH spokeswoman Eileen Shields.
“What doesn’t abound are pigeons taking up residence inside restaurants. Very unusual occurrence, even for San Francisco.”
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.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Bird Gone, Pigeon Gone, Pigeon problems, pigeon spikes, 1-877-4NO-BIRD, 4-S Gel, Bird Control, Pigeon Control, bird repellent, Bird Spikes, sonic bird repellent, stainless steel bird spikes, bird spikes Vancouver, Ultra Sonic Bird Control, Bird Netting, Plastic Bird Spikes, Canada bird spike deterrents, Pigeon Pests, B Gone Pigeon, Pigeon Patrol, pest controller, pest control operator, pest control technician, Pigeon Control Products, humane pigeon spikes, pigeon deterrents, pigeon traps, Pigeon repellents, Sound & Laser Deterrents, wildlife control, raccoon, skunk, squirrel deterrent, De-Fence Spikes, Dragons Den.
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 18, 2019 | Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Bird Spikes, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Spikes
Revealed: the mechanism that allows birds of a feather to flock together
Pigeons loaded with GPS backpacks show the secrets of co-ordinated flight control
Anyone interested in the democratic process could do worse than study the group decisions made by pigeons in mid-flight. Scientists have discovered that pigeon flocks are governed by a kind of “democratic hierarchy” that makes sure everyone flies in the same direction.
With the help of tiny GPS backpacks carried by each member of a loft of pigeons, researchers have discovered how large numbers of animals are able to instantly co-ordinate their movements to ensure that they do things as a group rather than as anarchic individuals.
Although the principle has so far only been demonstrated with a smallish flock of Hungarian pigeons, the scientists believe it could also operate on much bigger groups of animals, such as schools of fish and herds of wild buffalo, and might even explain how close-knit groups of people, such as juries, manage to reach a single decision.
“Anyone who has seen flocks of birds or schools of fish is familiar with this phenomenon of large numbers of individuals in a fast-moving group appearing to move in a co-ordinated way, and it’s not immediately clear how they coordinate themselves,” said Dora Biro, a zoologist at Oxford University.
“Our question was, how do groups like flocks of pigeons make decisions about what to do and where to go?” Dr Biro said.
The GPS backpacks carried by the pigeons enabled the scientists to precisely monitor the birds’ movements, relative to each other, every 0.2 seconds of their journey from the point where the scientists released them to their home loft in Budapest, 15km away.
“Previously, people had assumed democratic decisions, where every bird’s preferences are somehow averaged out, and that’s what the group ends up doing. Or there might be a single leader or a small number of leaders that everyone follows,” Dr Biro said.
“But what we were able to do by tracking these birds with individual GPS units was to resolve the leader-follower relationship within the flock. What we found was a more sophisticated and refined mechanism for how the decisions are made,” she said.
“There wasn’t a single leader, nor was there a kind of egalitarian decision-making where everyone had an equal vote. Instead, each bird did have a vote, but the weight that each vote carried differed between birds.
“It represented a kind of hierarchy where the decisions of some birds near the top of the hierarchy carried more weight in terms of what the birds did than the birds lower down the hierarchy, who were still influential but to a lesser degree,” said Dr Biro, who carried out the study with Tamás Vicsek of Eötvös University in Budapest.
“Whether such effects come from some individuals being more motivated to lead, or being inherently better navigators perhaps with greater navigational knowledge, is an intriguing question we don’t yet have an answer to,” Dr Biro said.
The loft of pigeons in the study consisted of 10 birds whose every movement was recorded as they flew in a flock from one location to another. The analysis, published in the journal Nature, described how each bird moved in relation to its neighbours, with some individuals leading more than others.
“It’s neither a completely democratic system, where everybody gets the vote, nor [one with] a single leader or a few leaders responsible for the decisions. But in fact every individual gets a kind of input into what the group as a whole should do,” Dr Biro said.
“If this was honed by evolution, if there was a selective advantage for individuals in the group to make decisions in this way, then it might represent a particularly efficient form of group decision making… It is possible that the mechanism we saw in these pigeons generalises to other species and to other group decision-making contexts, even in humans,” Dr Biro 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.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Bird Gone, Pigeon Gone, Pigeon problems, pigeon spikes, 1-877-4NO-BIRD, 4-S Gel, Bird Control, Pigeon Control, bird repellent, Bird Spikes, sonic bird repellent, stainless steel bird spikes, bird spikes Vancouver, Ultra Sonic Bird Control, Bird Netting, Plastic Bird Spikes, Canada bird spike deterrents, Pigeon Pests, B Gone Pigeon, Pigeon Patrol, pest controller, pest control operator, pest control technician, Pigeon Control Products, humane pigeon spikes, pigeon deterrents, pigeon traps, Pigeon repellents, Sound & Laser Deterrents, wildlife control, raccoon, skunk, squirrel deterrent, De-Fence Spikes, Dragons Den.
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 18, 2019 | Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons in the News, UltraSonic Bird Control
BioMed Central
A sampling of pigeons captured on the streets of Madrid has revealed the bacterial pathogens they carry. Researchers found two bugs that were highly prevalent in the bird population, Chlamydophila psittaci and Campylobacter jejuni, both of which cause illness in humans.
*
Fernando Esperón from the Animal Health Research Center, Madrid, Spain, worked with a team of researchers to analyse blood and enema samples taken from 118 pigeons caught using gun-propelled nets.
He said, “the present study demonstrates the extremely high prevalence of two zoonotic pathogens in feral pigeons in Madrid. At the same time, infection with these pathogens did not appear to be associated with any harmful clinical signs in the birds themselves. This leads to the hypothesis that pigeons act as asymptomatic reservoirs of Chlamydophila psittaci and Campylobacter jejuni. These birds may therefore pose a public health risk to the human population.”
Chlamydophila psittaci was found in 52.6% of the pigeons captured, while Campylobacter jejuni was present in 69.1%. Although there have been few reports of disease transmission between pigeons and humans, it can occur by aerosols, direct contact or indirect contact through food and water contamination.
According to Esperón, “Thermophilic Campylobacter species are considered the primary pathogens responsible for acute diarrhea in the world. In fact, in many countries such as England and Wales, Canada, Australia and New Zealand Campylobacter jejuni infection causes more cases of acute diarrhea than infection by Salmonella 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.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Bird Gone, Pigeon Gone, Pigeon problems, pigeon spikes, 1-877-4NO-BIRD, 4-S Gel, Bird Control, Pigeon Control, bird repellent, Bird Spikes, sonic bird repellent, stainless steel bird spikes, bird spikes Vancouver, Ultra Sonic Bird Control, Bird Netting, Plastic Bird Spikes, Canada bird spike deterrents, Pigeon Pests, B Gone Pigeon, Pigeon Patrol, pest controller, pest control operator, pest control technician, Pigeon Control Products, humane pigeon spikes, pigeon deterrents, pigeon traps, Pigeon repellents, Sound & Laser Deterrents, wildlife control, raccoon, skunk, squirrel deterrent, De-Fence Spikes, Dragons Den.
