Bridge repair costs have more than doubled because pigeon poo disguised rust.
Council officials struck a deal for the work on Conwy Road Bridge in 2016.
But the costs shot up by £844,000 to £1.53m after an inspection revealed rust on the structure was hidden by the birds’ droppings.
Conwy council chief executive Iwan Davies said it was not possible to identify the extent of the works but a councillor said it was “disappointing”.
Repairs for the two lane bridge, which takes traffic across the town’s estuary, were sent out to tender in 2016.
But a report by the council’s audit committee said the “considerable” extra work needed had not been found originally because of “access” problems.
“The additional works…significantly impacted the total cost of the works,” the report said.
Gele ward councillor Andrew Wood said: “I can’t believe we’ve not made more of an issue about this refurbishment, it’s plus £844,000.
“If the council tendered with all that information in the first place then it would have cost less. But we’re in a situation now where we have to carry on, so I’m disappointed.”
Mr Davies added: “It wasn’t an overspend as such, it was a re-calibration of what needed to be done.”
A woman who fed a bit of a sausage roll to a pigeon in the street has been fined £150.
Sally-Ann Fricker said she was out shopping in Bath with her daughter and her two young boys when a pigeon landed in front of them.
She broke off a corner of the snack and threw it to the bird which immediately flew off with the morsel.
Bath and North East Somerset Council said anyone caught littering faced a £150 fixed penalty fine.
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The CIA has declassified details of its secret Cold War spy-pigeon missions.
The files reveal how pigeons were trained for clandestine missions photographing sensitive sites inside the Soviet Union.
The release also reveals how ravens were used to drop bugging devices on window sills and dolphins were trained for underwater missions.
The CIA believed animals could fulfil “unique” tasks for the agency’s clandestine operations.
Inside the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, is a museum, sadly closed to the general public. During a visit to interview the then-director I caught sight of something unusual amid all the bugging devices and spy gadgets.
It was a model pigeon with a camera strapped to it.
The 1970s’ operation was codenamed Tacana and explored the use of pigeons with tiny cameras to automatically take photos, newly released files show.
It took advantage of the fact that the humble pigeon is possessed of an amazing ability – almost a superpower. They can be dropped somewhere they have never been before and still find their way hundreds of miles back home.
In World War Two a little known branch of British intelligence – MI14(d) – ran a Secret Pigeon Service which dropped birds in a container with a parachute over Occupied Europe. A questionnaire was attached. More than 1,000 pigeons returned with messages including details of V1 rocket launch sites and German radar stations.
Experts found that the quality of the photographs was higher than those produced by spy satellites operating at the time. One fear raised during the tests was if a member of the public stumbled upon “pigeon and camera” and assumed that the government was spying on its own, so an elaborate cover story was cooked up.
How many actual missions did the spy-pigeons fly and what intelligence did they collect? That, apparently, is still secret.
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
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Shoppers who witnessed a gang of teenagers stamp on a fatally injured pigeon have been urged to report the incident to police.
The RSPCA says a crime may have been committed after eight youths were seen repeatedly kicking the bird in Darlington town centre.
One youngster was reported to have jumped on the animal – which was already lying injured after being hit by a car.
A spokesperson with the animal welfare charity said: “This sounds like a distressing incident and we urge anyone with information to contact the police or the RSPCA.”
The attack, on Saturday, was carried out in front of children, the Northern Echo reported. It continued even after a nearby shop security guard attempted to warn the youths away.
One witness, Jordon O’Gorman told the newspaper: “It was disgusting.” He added: “I just saw a lot of teenagers surrounding it. I saw one boy jump and land on the pigeon. “I heard the security guard tell them to move but they wouldn’t. “It had been knocked over – it was dead – but still no need to jump on it.”
“It’s disgusting and there were two younger kids with me so I turned them round. I didn’t want them seeing that.”
State Rep. Jaime Andrade has been fighting a losing battle to clean up the mess made by pigeons at the CTA’s Irving Park Blue Line station on the city’s Northwest Side.
The sidewalk by the station is so thickly spackled with droppings that it looks and smells like a chicken coop. Andrade, who represents the district that includes the station, has pushed for state funds to keep the birds away. Earlier this month, he was hit in the head by guano during a television interview.
But Andrade, state and city officials and the CTA are up against someone who is determined to feed and protect birds around the city and visits the Irving Park station often with big sacks of white rice.
“I protect all God’s creatures because this is my mission,” said Young Kang, 67, while at the Hoa Nam Grocery store on Argyle Street in Uptown last week, where she buys supplies to feed the birds. “This is not for my good. God gave this to me. I take care of the birds.”
Kang, who used to be in the restaurant business, said she is a Christian minister and founder of a nonprofit. It has been incorporated as Young Bird Care Society since April 2015 and is in good standing, according to the Illinois Secretary of State’s office. Over the past 11 years, Kang said she has spent $300,000 of her own money feeding birds in locations around the city, going out every day and hiring people to help.
She said she also helps the homeless, stuffing money under their pillows as they sleep.
CTA riders interviewed outside the Irving Park station described the pigeon situation as “gross” and “terrible” and wondered why more netting couldn’t be put up in more areas of the bridge. Illinois Department of Transportation spokesman Guy Tridgell said the agency can’t do this because it needs to have the area open for inspections and other maintenance.
“We’re happy to continue discussing and meeting with all interested parties to see if there’s some solution,” Tridgell said.
Andrade disagreed with IDOT’s explanation, saying netting could easily be removed for inspections. “The problem comes down to who is going to pay,” he said.
There is some metal netting under the Kennedy bridge, apart from the area around the CTA station entrance, but some of it is in disrepair.
By contrast, anti-pigeon netting is completely installed on the beams under the Union Pacific railroad bridge, above the sidewalk, just west of the CTA station. The bridge carries Metra’s Union Pacific Northwest Line.
Mary Parich of Independence Park said that sometimes the pigeon mess on the sidewalk is so bad that she has to tip-toe.
“They are God’s creatures, but you have to look out for the health of people, too,” Parich said.
Kang said she once lived in the neighborhood, and the birds have always been there, long before she started feeding them.
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
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Cadiz Cathedral in Spain is facing a pigeon infestation.
Laura Perez Maestro, CNN • Updated 13th December 2018
(CNN) — It’s always nice to share a meal with the locals on vacation, except when the locals steal your food, smash your plate, defecate on the table — and then fly away. Cadiz has been facing this exact pigeon problem.
That’s the situation in the southwestern Spanish port town of Cádiz where pigeons have been terrorizing tourists to such an extent that local authorities are now taking steps to banish thousands of birds.
“We are not exaggerating, the pigeons are not scared of humans any more,” Carlos Fernández, the manager of one of the restaurants in Cádiz’s beautiful Cathedral Square, tells CNN.
“They throw themselves at the food even when there are clients seating ready to eat it. They push glasses, plates and jars on to the floor and it’s a real mess.”
And when tourists give up on Cádiz’s sunny terraces and move inside, there’s still no escape from the birds, Fernández says.
“Even inside the restaurant, they come in, they know where the food is and that we don’t do anything to them, they are not scared”, adds Fernández.
Brazen Pigeons feeding directly from the table.
He says that the population of pigeons is now so high that customers pestered by the pigeons are being scarred by their experiences. “They don’t come back.”
It’s not a pretty picture either. The square’s winged residents “decorate” building facades and restaurant tables and chairs. They even make the ground difficult to walk on, says Fernández.
After a pigeon census by the city council decreed that the bird population of 9,000 was three times as many as Cádiz could sustain, authorities decided to take steps.
The plan is to catch and relocate 5,000 pigeons over a period of a year instead of culling them. They’ll then be transported at least 170 miles away — a distance hoped to discourage them from returning.
Alvaro de la Fuente, of the council’s environmental department, says the city wants “a respectful and sustainable solution to reduce the impact of the birds on cities like Cádiz.”
He adds that by relocating rather than exterminating the birds, Cádiz hopes to “establish a logical equilibrium where the cohabitation between humans and birds doesn’t damage either.”
The local government is confident this project will work because, although pigeons have strong homing instincts, once you take them beyond 170 miles from their home they tend to stay and settle in their new surroundings.
Some 3,000 leaflets instructing people to stop feeding the birds are also being distributed to make the change a little bit easier.
Health risks
Cádiz’s hoteliers, who say they’ve lost 20% of their business because of the pigeons and warned of health risks to their employees, welcome the relocation plan but want it implemented ASAP.
“It’s been years since we brought up the problem and started talking with the city hall,” says Antonio de María, president of Cádiz hoteliers association, Horeca.
“A few months ago, we were presented with a plan to move the pigeons to another city but they now say they need a health assessment on the pigeons that will be moved, so the project keeps getting delayed.”
Cádiz is not the only city with bird problems. In November, Rome’s authorities began using falcons to drive thousands of starlings out of the ancient city.
