by Pigeon Patrol | Jun 4, 2014 | Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons in the News
A legal settlement in January between Caltrans and wildlife protection groups over a highway construction project in Sonoma County may have protected local nesting birds in the short term, but the alternative measures used may be affecting wildlife populations in the long term, according to an environmental attorney who works with the Golden Gate Audubon Society.
At issue are cliff swallows, which had long built their mud nests on a pair of concrete bridges near Highway 101 in the Sonoma County community of Petaluma. When Caltrans decided it was time to rebuild those bridges during a highway widening project, contractors installed bird netting to keep the swallows away from the construction area. But that netting ended up snaring the small birds, and more than a hundred of them died.
Cliff swallows are so-named for their habit of building mud nests in cavities on cliffs and protected rock outcroppings. They’re one of the wildlife species that has adjusted well to human influence, mainly because of our habit of building thousands of vertical “cliff faces” everywhere we go. Concrete bridges and similar structures are especially attractive to the swallows because they tend to have concrete sills that overhang the vertical faces, which allow the birds to build their nests more efficiently.
When Caltrans agreed to end the use of netting during the construction project, its contractor C.C. Myers deployed a slick material called “Bird Slide” over the concrete. When the swallows learn after a few tries that they can’t get their carefully gathered beaks full of mud to stick to the Bird Slide, they give up and build their nests somewhere else.
That’s undeniably a better alternative than the netting: rather than getting injured or killed through entanglement, the birds shrug their shoulders and go off to build a nest somewhere else. And they may not have to travel far: C.C. Myers has left some of the concrete on the bridges bare, where swallow nests won’t get in the way of construction.
But according to Sommers, those patches of open concrete are more exposed to the elements than is ideal for the longevity of the nests, which are, after all, made of mud and spit. Swallows have nested on the bridges this season, with about 80 nests total. But that’s well under the historic 500-800 nests the bridge colonies built before construction.
Where did the remaining swallows go? They may well have dispersed throughout the nearby community looking for more suitable nesting sites. And that’s a problem: the highly gregarious birds fare better in huge colonies with up to 6,000 nests. Breaking up a colony may well mean a population decline in the long run.
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 | Jun 4, 2014 | Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons in the News
A 90-year-old Geneva man has been ordered evicted from the apartment he has been renting for more than 50 years for allegedly feeding pigeons on his balcony, according to a news media report.
The pensioner recently received a registered letter informing him that he had to leave the three-room flat in the heart of the city by the end of this month, Le Matin newspaper reported over the weekend.
“What’s happening to me is scandalous, unthinkable,” the elderly tenant told the newspaper.
Brolliet, the company managing the apartment building, said his lease was being terminated for “just cause”, referring to the man’s “intolerable behaviour” for feeding the pigeons after letting them come into his balcony.
The tenant, however, told Le Matin that he had not been feeding the birds since the death of his wife two years ago.
“And it’s not a crime,” he added, noting that he always paid his rent as required and even ahead of time.
The real estate management company maintains that it sent out the eviction letter after complaints from neighbours came to the attention of the building’s owners, a cooperative group.
“I don’t know how they could be so nasty,” said the pensioner, who faces a challenge trying to find another apartment for the 900 francs a month he is currently paying (including charges).
“Neighbours received pigeon droppings and and we are certain they came from his place,” Guy Tornare, head of the cooperative that owns the building, told Le Matin.
The situation has been known for many years but could “no longer be tolerated” after the building was renovated in February, Tornare said.
“I almost received (pigeon) excrement on my head during a visit,” Claude Guillod, an administrator with the coop, is quoted as saying by Le Matin.
Guillod said the bird droppings are dangerous because they can spread diseases.
“What has happened to this man is sad but it is because he has not listened that we have come to this.”
Guillod rejected the idea that the building owners wanted to get rid of the 90-year-old in order to raise the rent, saying that the issue was one of “hygiene”.
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 | Apr 30, 2014 | Bird Deterrent Products, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeons in the News
The purpose of cleaning and disinfecting agents is to provide the user with some degree of protection against bacteria and organisms that are commonly associated with all species of wild birds. Bacteria and organisms are most commonly found in and around nests and particularly in areas that are heavily soiled with pigeon excrement. Bacteria and organisms that have the potential to be passed on to human beings are common to all birds, including garden birds, and not just birds such as pigeons and gulls with which diseases are commonly associated.
For the majority of situations where pigeons have been perching on external ledges or architectural features and where basic soiling is the problem, hot soapy water (with a splash of disinfectant if required) is all that is required in order to prepare a surface prior to the installation of anti-roosting products.
When using any type of disinfectant the operator must be fully protected, with health and safety being the main consideration. It is therefore essential that a health and safety risk assessment is carried out prior to the use of any disinfectant. The operator should wear full-body protective overalls with a hood as well as protective rubber boots and rubber gloves. The operator should also wear protective eyewear and some type of facemask, the type being dictated by the extent of dust and dried excrement in the area concerned and the availability of ventilation. In some cases the operator may need to use breathing apparatus, certainly where there is an extremely large build-up of well-dried excrement that has been in situ for years rather than months.
The most common human diseases associated with contact with birds are salmonella, histoplasmosis and psittacosis. However, in a vast majority of cases where human beings have contracted one of these diseases it is as a result of close contact with caged birds, racing pigeons or birds kept in battery farms and not wild birds. It is a commonly held view that a human being has a much greater chance of contracting salmonella from eating supermarket chicken or eggs than from any type of contact with wild birds.
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)
The information on this blog is for personal use only. Content for this blog obtained from other websites is not being used for any commercial reasons whatsoever as per the copyright statement on the Pigeon Control Resource Centre’s website. http://www.pigeoncontrolresourcecentre.org/ Special thanks for the people and companies that helped gather this information. This information is to be used for reference only.
by Pigeon Patrol | Apr 20, 2014 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons in the News, UltraSonic Bird Control
The need to control feral pigeon populations in urban areas has been the subject of intense debate for decades with town and city councils making little impact on the problem due to lack of investment and, in many cases, a reluctance to think laterally. Although the feral pigeon has been a common feature of urban life for the last 100 years there is no doubt that urban flocks are now growing faster than their numbers can be controlled. The reason for this unprecedented rise in feral pigeon numbers is due, almost exclusively, to the availability of food and the methods used to control the birds. Other factors such as the availability of good roosting and breeding facilities also play their part.
Today the feral pigeon can be seen in virtually every area of the globe other than the two polar icecaps, exploiting man for food and his buildings for the purposes of roosting and breeding. Man has attempted to control the feral pigeon by using a variety of lethal controls, includingpoisons, narcotics, cage traps and shooting, and yet the pigeon has shrugged off all these attempts at population control and continued to live and breed in close association with man undeterred. Lethal controls have been complemented by an arsenal of deterrents, provided in an effort to deny or restrict roosting and perching opportunities (thereby reducing guano-related problems). Anti-roosting systems such as anti-roosting spikes have proved extremely effective at displacing pigeons from areas that pigeons roost and nest; but may not be a total solution as pigeons may simply move to other areas nearby.
So what other options are available to control and contain the problem?
The use of lethal control as a means of controlling and reducing pigeon populations has been found to have no effect in terms of reducing pigeon flock size.
Breeding Control
The principle of a scheme using artificial breeding facilities is to provide a pigeon loft ordovecote in which feral pigeons can be encouraged to roost and breed and from which their eggs can be removed as laid and replaced with dummy eggs. This method of breeding control has been found to be extremely effective in reducing flock size and maintaining that reduction indefinitely.
If public feeding is identified to be the cause of the problem a system of controls must be provided that take the impact of persistent feeding into consideration at the same time as identifying large-scale pigeon roosts and closing them 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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
The information on this blog is for personal use only. Content for this blog obtained from other websites is not being used for any commercial reasons whatsoever as per the copyright statement on the Pigeon Control Resource Centre’swebsite. http://www.pigeoncontrolresourcecentre.org/ Special thanks for the people and companies that helped gather this information. This information is to be used for reference only.
by Pigeon Patrol | Apr 20, 2014 | Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeons in the News
The anti-bird netting covering the lotus bed at Echo Park Lake was being removed today a few weeks after a resident complained that the nets had trapped and separated ducklings from their mothers, leading some chicks to die. It’s not clear if the removal of the nets was prompted by the complaint or was already in the works. But one member of the crew removing the nets today said the fabric would also be taken down from the lake’s other wetland areas.
The netting was installed about a year ago after ducks and other birds began feasting on the approximately 20,000 aquatic plants that were installed as part of the lake’s clean up. The idea of the nets was to give the plants time to grow and establish themselves before getting picked off by birds. But no one ever said when those nets would be removed.
Thomas DeBoe, who focused attention on the problems caused by the nets, alerted The Eastsider this morning when he saw the nets being removed over the lotus bed. “Today the lotuses are being freed,” he said.
It’s not clear how the aquatic plants will hold up without the nets but the lifting of the black shroud restores the classic vista of the lotus plants floating on the lake and downtown skyscrapers rising in the distance.
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)
