by johnnymarin | Jun 6, 2018 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
When a group of students discarded an old mop on their dormitory balcony before the holidays they didn’t give it a moment’s thought.
But when they returned after the break they found a family of birds had made a nest on top of the mop head.
Now their balcony is home to a group of baby pigeons.
A picture of the scene was posted online by one of the students who uses the Reddit handle Aelegius.
“I live in a dormitory in Estonia and one of my roommates threw one of our old mops out on our third-floor balcony,” Aelegius told the Press Association.
“We often see pigeons around our building, but would never have thought they’d decide to nest here.
“We had a few weeks’ break from school for exam preparation and discovered those baby birds when we returned. I couldn’t describe my surprise upon seeing them.”
The birds had fashioned a regular nest of twigs on top of the mop head, with a wall giving them am extra buffer from the wind.
“I had never before seen baby pigeons before. I adore watching our pigeon family outside our kitchen window.”
Aelegius, who is due to graduate this year and then go to university, added: “The balcony had turned into quite a mess though, so we’ll definitely remember to not leave any mops out in the future.”
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 johnnymarin | Jun 5, 2018 | Pigeons in the News
A disease in pigeons and doves gained infamy in 2006 after it decimated the UK’s greenfinch bird population by half a million within that year. In 2012, the bird’s population had plummeted to 2.8 million from an estimated 4.3 million. A new study has now found a protozoan parasite that was implicated in the disease in common mynas in Faisalabad, Pakistan.
The disease, avian trichomonosis, is an emerging infection more colloquially called frounce or canker. It wreaks havoc on both endangered and common wildlife populations. The parasite responsible for causing it, Trichomonas gallinae, is known to normally affect pigeons, doves and the birds of prey that eat them.
But in 2005, it jumped species and devastated the UK’s garden songbird populations of greenfinches and chaffinches. Some earlier studies have pointed out that they probably had a major role to play in driving the passenger pigeon to extinction, and that they are causingpopulations of the endangered Mauritian pink pigeon to fall. (Interesting aside: a T. gallinae-like protozoan had commonly infected the dinosaurs as well.)
Trichomonosis affects the upper respiratory and gastrointestinal tract of birds. Affected birds develop lesions in the mouth and/or oesophagus and show signs of lethargy and laboured breathing. Some of them drool saliva and have wet plumage around the bill. T. gallinae can’t survive outside the host and is vulnerable to dehydration. The parasite is transmitted when infected birds share their food and water with others.
Common mynas roost with the blue rock pigeon, the latter a species that hosts T. gallinae in their bodies without harm to themselves. Since mynas are also known to eat pigeon and dove fledglings, researchers already suspected that the disease had jumped species.
Mynas are highly adaptable and live and breed in a wide range of climates. They are also known to evict other resident birds from their nests, earning them the sobriquet ‘kalahapriya’, Sanskrit for ‘quarrel-lover’. Though native to Asia, the myna has thrived in new environments to which it has been introduced.
In fact, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), it’s one of the three bird species on the ‘world’s 100 worst invasive species’ list. Given its runaway success in occupying new territory, the myna’s ability to spread diseases to other susceptible domestic and wild avian species in other parts of the world is a matter of grave concern.
The global distribution of the common myna. Blue indicates its native range, red the regions in which it was introduced. Credit: Biatch/Wikimedia Commons
The researchers, from the University of Agriculture in Faisalabad, the King Saud University in Riyadh and the University of East Anglia, Norwich, captured 167 mynas across eight sites in Faisalabad to screen for T. gallinae. They used a binomial sequence-based genotyping system, where genetic variation is measured in predetermined DNA sequences, and found that about 20% of the birds were infected with the disease.
The infection rates were lowest in places where the contact between mynas and blue rock pigeons was limited. At the same time, the infection itself was widespread: there were infected mynahs in all the surveyed sites.
The study’s authors have inferred that the disease in mynahs was endemic, i.e. restricted to a particular region. Farah Ishtiaq, a disease ecologist at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, who was not involved in the study, thinks this is a bold claim to make because it has not been explored elsewhere and because there has been no evidence thus far for this claim.
According to Kevin Tyler, a cellular microbiologist at the University of East Anglia and one of the authors of the study, the genetic subtype, or strain, affecting the mynas was different from the one affecting European finches.
He also said in response to Ishtiaq’s comment that the subtype had been found at all sites at a similar level at different times. Together with the fact that T. gallinae did not appear to be causing severe disease, “our interpretation … is that this is consistent with the disease being endemic in this region rather than a recent outbreak.”
Spencer Greenwood, a professor at the University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, who was not part of the study, also found the endemism claim reasonable given they had only found one genetic subtype and that most birds had not shown evident signs of the disease.
Then again, only 11 out of the 33 infected mynas had exhibited signs of poor health, suggesting they were able to carry the infection without fatal consequences to themselves while potentially being able to spread the disease to other species. However, more studies will have to be conducted before we’re sure whether mynahs are a reservoir or a dead-end host. This is because the mynas have the potential to be a reservoir for this disease. Though the authors have found infection, the study does not address transmission to and from mynas as hosts.
The infection incidence was higher among male mynas than female ones. Nicholas Clark, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, who has studied avian malaria in mynas, said, “Perhaps the males are more likely to come into close contact with pigeons and doves.” He added that researchers would have to study the behavioural ecology of males and females in the nest to know more. He was not involved in the study.
However, Ishtiaq said that mynas have no sexual dimorphism – so sexes can’t be told apart without surgical or molecular testing. So it would be easy to over- or under-estimate the number of birds of either sex.
But Tyler is confident about being to use subtle differences in morphometric measurements to their advantage. In this study, the researchers were familiar with the captured mynas and could confidently ascribe sex. Nonetheless, he and his colleagues remain unsure as to why mostly male mynas were infected with trichomonosis.
Greenwood said other aspects, such as a myna’s roosting behaviour, weather conditions, availability of food, closeness to breeding season, etc. need to be considered to figure out why more males seem to be infected.
He also thinks that sampling the pigeons that share habitat with the mynas and determining what type of strains they carry would be important. “It would be interesting to see if they have the same subtype and if they do, at what prevalence do they occur compared to other subtypes.”
Protozoan parasites cause some of the world’s worst diseases. Because a lot of them are restricted to the developing world, studies such as this demonstrate the importance of studying emerging infectious diseases and their social and economic repercussions. “Mynas have already been implicated in the spread of bird flu through contact with poultry,” Tyler said, “so this could be of concern to poultry farmers.”
His team plans to work with groups in India and other places where mynas thrive.
Ishtiaq thinks that they have made a good start in understanding the host and geographical range of trichomonosis, and feels it would be good to test the common rosefinch for T. gallinae. This is the only finch species that migrates to South Asia and comes in contact with other resident birds. “I have seen many shared avian malaria parasites between resident finches and common rosefinch,” she 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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Jun 4, 2018 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
I read the article on pigeon control with great interest as in the UK several large cities have had similar problems. Their approach has been different but has had a high success rate.
Their approach was quite unusual. They first built nesting sites or dovecotes for the pigeons and these proved very attractive to the birds.
The next move was the radical one. Every day, an employee would visit each site and remove any eggs. No eggs, no new pigeons. In a surprisingly short time, the numbers dropped dramatically and are well under control.
A few enquiries would provide the names of the cities involved and could be very helpful with the problem in Malta.
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 johnnymarin | Jun 3, 2018 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
BRIDGETON, Mo. – SSM Health DePaul Hospital has been trying to keep the disease-carrying pigeons away from its property, but they refuse to fly away. So the hospital hired Presto-X to remove them in the most humane way.
“Since they aren’t a native species, indigenous to Missouri, there is no regulation,” conservationist Dan Zarlenga said.
That means there isn’t a wrong way to get rid of them. However, hospital employees contacted Fox 2/KPLR 11 after witnessing a pest control employee drown the pigeons in water.
“We definitely recommend that whatever method is used to deal with them, that people do it in a humane manner for ethical reasons,” Zarlenga said.
Since there are no standard procedures for handling pigeons, Fox 2 reached out to another company to learn industry practices. Up until recently, many pest control companies used buckets of water when hired to catch and kill them. However, many are now starting to use more humane practices.
“It’s unfortunate to have any lethal method to control animals, so if that’s necessity by the situation, certainly doing it in the most humane way possible is what we would endorse,” Zarlenga said.
The hospital released the following statement on the matter:
“We received a complaint from an employee, the company denies the allegation. I think the key is that our express instructions were and are to capture and release the birds and to do them no harm. We do not want them ‘disposed of.’ We want them unharmed and released. BTW, while we have no evidence that he did this, we have asked that the technician accused of harming a bird not return to our campus.”
Meanwhile, Presto-X released a statement denying the action:
“Presto-X is a leader in its conscious approach to bird management. Because of the numerous diseases spread by birds, their droppings, and shed feathers; pest prevention and bird management are critical components of a comprehensive public health and safety strategy. Pigeons, in particular, can transmit over 60 diseases with some having devastating, life-long effects on humans. In this instance, pigeons were captured humanely and transported offsite for release in accordance with local and state regulations.”
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 johnnymarin | Jun 2, 2018 | Pigeons in the News
These include some 148 infant birds, 619 adult birds and 27 others.“This is the season for babies of birds such as Parakeets, Kites and Pigeons being born. Of late, there has been a significant spike in the number of cases of birds falling prey to dehydration and heatstroke. The infant birds are often ready for their first flight around this time of the year, but they get dehydrated and fall. AHMEDABAD: At a time when many of us fall prey to dizziness and dehydration merely after spending a couple of hours in the scorching sun, the plight of stray animals and birds is much worse. The situation has worsened so much that birds tend to fall and suffer head injuries, as they get dehydrated while flying.Nearly 800 cases of birds falling prey to heat-related illnesses were reported at Jivdaya Charitable Trust (JCT) in Ahmedabad in the first fortnight of this month.
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)
