by Ryan Ponto | Sep 12, 2016 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Pigeon Patrol's Services
DEAR JOAN: We hope you can advise us on a problem. We live in the city and have a metal, flat roof garden building that raccoons or opossums are using as a bathroom.
We also have a small wood utility shed — seldom used — that rats now call home. We have trapped some but in a few weeks, more move in. Any suggestions for a permanent fix on either problem, or is there one?
Lou Cobb, Livermore
DEAR LOU: The problem on your shed is likely raccoons. For some reason, they like creating latrines up off the ground.
It doesn’t really matter which one is doing it — either way, the stuff is toxic and you should be careful when removing it.
Wear gloves and a respirator, and bag up the poop for the garbage. To keep them off, try taking some coffee cans — do they even make those anymore? — or some sort of container. Punch several holes in the side of the container and put some rags soaked in amonia inside, then put the lid on. Set these on top of the roof.
As for the rats, people get very determined to kill them, but as you have experienced, there are plenty of others to take their place. You need to find where they are getting into the shed and then patch holes and block entrances.
Because the shed is wooden, it might be more difficult to keep them from chewing their way in. If that’s happening, consider putting siding or even metal flashing on the building to stop the gnawing.
You should also take a look at your yard and remove anything that makes it attractive to critters, including pet food left out over night, water bowls and heavy ground covers, especially ivy. Keeping them out of your yard is the first step to keeping them out of your shed and off your roof.
DEAR JOAN: I so enjoy your column but was quite dismayed today to see the letter from about using bird netting to stop skunks from digging.
I do hope the writer is using the wildlife-friendly netting instead of the standard netting that is available in most hardware stores. That type of netting can be deadly to to our local wildlife: birds, lizards, snakes and even bats can get tangled in the netting and are unable to escape, often injuring themselves.
At Lindsay Wildlife Experience, the aquatic garter snake, Ribbon, was a victim of that kind of netting. Some of his ribs were broken, making it impossible for him to survive in the wild. He serves as an animal ambassador, allowing our exhibit hall interpreters to tell his story so more people are aware of the dangers of standard garden netting.
I am writing as a concerned citizen and not as a representative of Lindsay Wildlife, although I do volunteer there and appreciate the opportunity to tell Ribbon’s story.
Marni Berendsen, Bay Area
DEAR MARNI: I was aware of the dangers of monofilament bird netting, but I didn’t think about it being a concern lying flat on the ground. But you are, of course, correct.
Creatures can become tangled in the netting, and if they are unable to free themselves, they can starve to death. They also can cut their mouths trying to chew through it, and break bones, as was the case with Ribbon, in their attempts at escape.
If you’re planning to use netting to protect trees, gardens or as a cover on lawns to prevent creatures from digging for grubs, look for types certified as wildlife safe.
Thanks for the reminder, Marni .
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by Ryan Ponto | Sep 11, 2016 | Bird Deterrent Products, Pigeon Patrol's Services
So much so, that any gulls in the area scatter in fear as soon as they get a glimpse of the black and white falcon.
“It’s all about the balance of nature,” said Everett, a falconer with Falcon Environmental Services.
“He’s a natural predator and the seagulls know that. When they see him, this area becomes unattractive to them.”
Hornblower Niagara Cruises has contracted services from Falcon Environmental Services for the past two years after it added food and beverage services to its lower deck along the Niagara River.
“Wherever you have an attraction, there’s typically gulls that follow the folks around follow the food and they can make quite the mess,” said Mory DiMaurizo.
When Hornblower first launched ed its food and beverage services, they also installed signs asking guests to not feed the birds.
When the pesky gulls continued to gather en masse on the deck area, staff looked for another solution to discourage the winged intruders and birds of prey have proven to be a highly effective yet non-invasive method of seagull control.
Bullet, a 10-year-old hybrid of a Saker falcon and a gyrfalcon, never has to leave his handler’s side. His presence alone is enough to deter the gulls.
“The birds don’t fly, he’s used as a deterrent and it’s 100 per cent effective,” DeMaurizo said. “The bird is there to create a bubble of awareness around us so that the gulls know this is not an area they want to go in.”
Everett and his raptor companion are also a hit with guests, who are eager to find out why they’re spending time at a tourist attraction.
“I’ve met some incredibly interesting people from all over the world,” he said. “I bet Bullet’s photo is on a lot of Facebook pages.”
DiMaurizo said the duo has been especially popular with international tourists.
“In the Middle East and Asia, falconry is a huge sport that many people are interested in.”
Based out of Alexandria, Ont., Falcon Environmental Services also provides bird control at several Canadian military bases as well as a number of landfill sites in New Jersey.
It has been in charge of wildlife management at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport for almost 20 years.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by Pigeon Patrol | Sep 9, 2016 | Bird Netting, Pigeon Patrol's Services
Summary: “Some Noida residents say that they have had to make tough lifestyle choices just to keep the pigeons at bay. “Residents say that pigeons are almost omnipresent in Noida, and the windowsills and air conditioners in high-rises are their preferred locations for building nests. “Others say they have had to give up on some of life’s little pleasures, like enjoying the cool breeze and rains, just to keep the pigeons away. I have had to repeatedly shoo them away from my AC and throw away new nests they build outside the windows. If you are living in a high-rise building in Noida, this must be all too familiar to you.
It’s a bright sunny morning. But before the alarm clock can wake you up, the noisy flapping of the pigeons on your ledge does. If you are living in a high-rise building in Noida, this must be all too familiar to you.
Pigeons might have been great for lovers in ‘Maine Pyaar Kiya’, but they’re a bit of a menace in Noida, and like every other illegal tenant, they are no fun to deal with. Noida’s high-rise-dwellers tell us the things they have to resort to in order to fight the ‘vermin of the sky’.READ ALSO: Stray dog bites irk Noida residents The pigeons have adopted the ‘survival of the fittest’ motto and begun to outsmart the residents’ attempts to ward them off. Aravind Sinha, a resident of a high-rise in Noida Extension, says, “The pigeons would camp outside my bedroom window and make a lot of noise, so my wife and I came up with a solution – throw a glass of water at them through the window.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by Pigeon Patrol | Sep 6, 2016 | Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Spikes
Dear Diary:
I was biking in Riverside Park near the 79th Street Boat Basin, when suddenly a swarm of pigeons formed a thick, fluttery wall, obstructing my view. I swerved and fell hard on the bike path.
Bloody and barely able to move, I looked up toward the pigeons’ likely point of origin and locked eyes with a woman who was tossing out bird seed. Naturally, I started up a conversation.
“Please stop feeding the pigeons,” I said as politely as I could in my stunned state.
“I’m feeding them on the side of the bike path so that they don’t get in the way of the bikers,” she said.
I frowned. “I don’t think that’s actually going to be very helpful.”
She offered a new line of reasoning: “You know, bikers are dangerous on their own. I’ve seen them get into lots of accidents from sheer carelessness.”
“I’m sorry, but that has nothing to do with feeding pigeons,” I said, trying to steer the conversation back on track.
“Pigeons need to eat too!” she said.
I paused for a moment to consider how I might redirect her overflowing empathy.
“I was just in a potentially life-threatening accident, and I may have broken my arm,” I said. “Personally, I value human life more than pigeon life.”
She frowned.
“O.K.,” she said. “I’ll feed them up on the hill so that they’re not so close to the bikers.”
Yes! I thought. I finally got to her.
But as the ambulance arrived moments later, I couldn’t help but think that my small victory would be a fluttering, er, fleeting one.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by Pigeon Patrol | Aug 19, 2016 | Bird Netting, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeons in the News
Can pigeons save the world? Probably not, but an innovative pilot project in London is showing how they can help reduce your exposure to air pollution.
The project, called Pigeon Air Patrol, was launched Monday in the British capital. Ten homing pigeons have been outfitted with small, lightweight backpacks containing air-quality sensors and released at various points across the city.
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On their return flights home, the pigeons transmit real-time data on levels of ozone and nitrogen dioxide, the main urban air pollutants. Londoners can plug in their location at the handle @PigeonAir on Twitter and receive an instant response from one of the pigeons, informing them of the pollutant concentrations they’re inhaling.
They can also visit the Pigeon Air Patrol site to view a live map of the birds’ flights.
“It’s a tool to inform citizens about their exposure to pollution so that they can improve their health and well-being by reducing those exposures,” said Romain Lacombe, chief executive of Plume Labs, the Paris company that launched the pigeon project.
“Urban runners, cyclists, people that are sensitive to pollution, parents with young children, and people with asthma can track how pollution will change throughout the day, so they can change their behavior to reduce the impact on their health,” he added.
London is one of the most heavily polluted cities in Europe, largely owing to diesel exhaust from vehicles. The foul air is linked to nearly 9,500 premature deaths in the capital. Worldwide, air pollution sends some 7 million people to an early death.
The idea of putting air monitors on pigeons came from Pierre Duquesnoy, creative director at the marketing and technology agency DigitasLBi. He submitted the idea to a competition launched last year by Twitter U.K., in conjunction with the London Design Festival, to find new ways to use the site.
Duquesnoy then partnered with Plume Labs, which helped develop the backpacks over the past two years, with support from Twitter and atmospheric scientists at Imperial College London.
“Over the last 10 years Twitter has been used in ways that we would never have imagined,” Helen Lawrence, head of creative agency development at Twitter, said in a statement. “Real time information direct to your mobile is hugely useful, but add pigeons into that mix and you’ve got something really powerful.”
Lacombe said the pigeon project complements Plume Labs’ Plume Air Report, which collects pollution data from stationary monitoring sites in about 300 cities in 40 countries and makes them available to residents in real time, as well as offering advice on what to do to avoid overexposure.
“Traditional sensors are very important, but unfortunately they require large investments, and they are not mobile, so you don’t capture how pollution changes from one street to the next,” Lacombe said. “That makes it quite hard to know what you’re being exposed to and what you can do about it.”
The London pigeon project will run for only three days, Lacombe said. “We are doing this to raise awareness of the health threats posed by pollution by capturing the imagination of the public, which is hard to do with pollution without strong messages.”
Plume Labs wants to put lightweight pollution sensors on people, with the mobile data they collect transmitted via Twitter. The company is using a crowdfunding site to recruit 100 Londoners to test the devices they move around the city over the next few months.
“One of the research teams at Imperial College London specializes in how personal information can help change individual behavior,” Lacombe said. “We’ll study how having these personal sensors helps reduce exposures and how they can help develop new policies using the data we collect.”
The company wants to make the mobile monitoring devices available on the open market. The current sensor, which testers must buy, costs about $113.
As for the pigeons, they might be used in other places to tweet real-time pollution data to people living in large cities.
“It would be quite interesting,” Lacombe said. “We don’t have plans to do that at the moment, but why not?”
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by Pigeon Patrol | Aug 18, 2016 | Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Pigeon Patrol's Services
A pigeon poacher who grabs his prey by hand in a Soho park and sells them to Manhattan merchants claims he’s just a misunderstood bird lover.
“I’ve been poaching pigeons on and off for about 40 years in New York City,” said the unapologetic poacher, who spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity. “It’s pretty good money; I’ll make $5 a pigeon.
“I’ll sit on a park bench and throw out some food,” he continued. “Within seconds a bunch of pigeons will gather, and with both hands I’ll grab about five at a time around their necks and put them in a black garbage bag. I don’t use a net, my bare hands work fine.
“Pigeons are easy to catch,” the birdman explained. “When pigeons walk around, it’s easy for string to get tangled up around their feet. It cuts off their circulation. That’s why you see so many with missing toes.
“Those are the easiest to catch.”
He nabs his birds in broad daylight and occasionally encounters a disgusted animal-lover.
“I do get confronted by people who’ll come up to me and say, ‘What are you going to do with those pigeons?’
“Have sex with them,” is his usual retort.
“Then they’ll leave me alone,” he said.
The poacher explained how the pigeon market in New York City — home to an estimated 1 million of the birds — works: A client will call him to place an order for 10 to 20 pigeons, he said, and will place orders up to a half-dozen times a year. One order always comes right before the Chinese Lunar New Year.
‘With both hands I’ll grab about five at a time around their necks and put them in a black garbage bag. I don’t use a net, my bare hands work fine’
– pigeon poacher
“In Chinatown they will do a ceremony where they release the pigeons into the wild,” he said. “In their religion, they think it’s bad karma to take from the earth without replenishing it. So this is their way of replenishing the earth.”
Jenny Wong, a spokesperson for the Chinatown Community Cultural Center, claimed to have no knowledge of such a practice.
The poacher also said he sells the birds to “poultry markets” but would not name them.
He admits the pigeon-poaching black market often leads to the birds being sold to rural hunting and shooting clubs for target practice. But he claims he does not sell to those places.
The poacher, without a hint of irony, spoke of pigeons as rat-like creatures before blurting, “I’m a bird lover. I’m a member of the American Mason Pigeon Association.” The Post could find no such group.
Even no-kill birdnapping is a crime, legally and morally, say animal-rights advocates.
“It’s a Class A misdemeanor and it’s punishable for up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $2,000,” said Elinor Molbegott, counsel for the Humane Society of New York. “All birds, including pigeons, are entitled to protection.”
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
