by johnnymarin | Jul 26, 2018 | Pigeons in the News
The number of fines issued by councils under controversial powers that let them penalise shouting, feeding pigeons and even collecting for charity has increased eightfold in a year.
Campaigners say that some town halls are “criminalising everyday life” by using antisocial behaviour laws to levy thousands of penalties of up to £100 for activities that are not illegal or harmful, but may be seen as distasteful or out of keeping with the area.
Councils in England and Wales used “public space protection orders” to issue at least 8,638 fines in 2017, up from the 1,004 since 2016, a freedom of information request by The Times revealed. The powers were created under the Antisocial Behaviour Act in 2014, allowing authorities to ban any activity deemed “detrimental to the quality of life”.
Some 152 councils have used the powers to ban drinking in public, while 29 have banned people from car racing. Antisocial behaviour is defined as anything that could cause harassment or distress and councils have used the orders to ban swearing and shouting, drawing on pavements with chalk, feeding birds, carrying a golf bag in a park and collecting for charity. Loitering, wearing hoods, busking, keeping chickens, riding hover boards and playing ball games have also been banned.
Councils can issue orders after public consultation and then issue fines. In most cases, they act only if behaviour is shown to have caused distress. Last year, councils implemented 960 orders, up from 519 in 2016.
Some have attracted controversy, such as banning protests outside an abortion clinic in Ealing. A proposal in Stoke-on-Trent to bar rough sleepers from using tents was dropped after criticism. However, at least 11 councils have banned the homeless from spending the night in tents, cars or the open air, while 34 have banned begging.
Almost 14,000 people have faced fines worth around £1.4 million to councils. Some authorities could not provide figures because fines are issued by police, and 17 failed to supply details.
“Councils are criminalising everyday life by banning things that aren’t antisocial or even unpleasant,” said a spokeswoman for the Manifesto Club, which highlights excessive regulation. “There is no distinction between what is harmful and what is not.”
Simon Blackburn of the Local Government Association said councils were acting to stop problems such as public drinking, racing in cars and aggressive begging.
He said: “Councils are determined to protect their communities from behaviour that ruins their quality of life, harms business or means people are scared to visit public places.”
has increased eightfold in a year.
Campaigners say that some town halls are “criminalising everyday life” by using antisocial behaviour laws to levy thousands of penalties of up to £100 for activities that are not illegal or harmful, but may be seen as distasteful or out of keeping with the area.
Councils in England and Wales used “public space protection orders” to issue at least 8,638 fines in 2017, up from the 1,004 since 2016, a freedom of information request by The Times revealed. The powers were created under the Antisocial Behaviour Act in 2014, allowing authorities to ban any activity deemed “detrimental to the quality of life”.
Some 152 councils have used the powers to ban drinking in public, while 29 have banned people from car racing. Antisocial behaviour is defined as anything that could cause harassment or distress and councils have used the orders to ban swearing and shouting, drawing on pavements with chalk, feeding birds, carrying a golf bag in a park and collecting for charity. Loitering, wearing hoods, busking, keeping chickens, riding hover boards and playing ball games have also been banned.
Councils can issue orders after public consultation and then issue fines. In most cases, they act only if behaviour is shown to have caused distress. Last year, councils implemented 960 orders, up from 519 in 2016.
Some have attracted controversy, such as banning protests outside an abortion clinic in Ealing. A proposal in Stoke-on-Trent to bar rough sleepers from using tents was dropped after criticism. However, at least 11 councils have banned the homeless from spending the night in tents, cars or the open air, while 34 have banned begging.
Almost 14,000 people have faced fines worth around £1.4 million to councils. Some authorities could not provide figures because fines are issued by police, and 17 failed to supply details.
“Councils are criminalising everyday life by banning things that aren’t antisocial or even unpleasant,” said a spokeswoman for the Manifesto Club, which highlights excessive regulation. “There is no distinction between what is harmful and what is not.”
Simon Blackburn of the Local Government Association said councils were acting to stop problems such as public drinking, racing in cars and aggressive begging.
He said: “Councils are determined to protect their communities from behaviour that ruins their quality of life, harms business or means people are scared to visit public places.”
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 | Jul 25, 2018 | Pigeons in the News
A Chicago alderman wants the city to lift a nearly 15-year ban on pigeon racing.
Alderman Gilbert Villegas says pigeon racing is a sport that receives little attention in the U.S. but is “deeply loved” in Poland. Villegas’ ward is home to many Polish residents he says are working with his office to change the city’s law.
The sport features specially trained pigeons that are released from specific locations and race back to their homes.
Villegas’ proposal would lift the ban for people in good standing with a national professional organization that requires minimum standards of care for “pedigreed rock doves.” Each bird would have to be registered with the organization.
The city banned homing pigeons in residential areas in 2004 after complaints from residents.
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 | Jul 24, 2018 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
The idea of raising barn pigeons as racing pigeons made sense, at least to me. So growing up, I built a coop (with help) behind our garage, then raised and trained barn pigeons as though they were racing pigeons.
I only trained them over a few miles, not the hundreds of miles that racing pigeons (homing pigeons) can do. But my training and buried knowledge in the barn pigeons worked: They came home to my chicken-wire coop.
Memories rushed back this week when I read Fran Spielman’s Sun-Times story on Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th) introducing an ordinance at the City Council meeting Wednesday to lift the Chicago ban on pigeon racing. Two other Northwest Side aldermen, Ariel Reboyras (30th) and Nick Sposato (38th), co-sponsored the ordinance.
I would love to see the return of racing pigeons — legally — in Chicago. They’re remarkable creatures.
Barn pigeons, the country cousins of city pigeons, are not as remarkable. The difference between barn or city pigeons and racing pigeons is like the difference between me and Julius Peppers.
Barn and city pigeons are descended from domestic pigeons. Domestic pigeons, such as racing pigeons, descend from rock doves.
The homing instinct is mysterious and remarkable in racing pigeons.
As a kid, my dad would drive me into the city (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) and its edifice of a massive library. I read every book on pigeons they had, but I devoured the books on racing pigeons.
I read of the exploits (some were war heroes) and looked at the photos of them — erect and firm specimens, unlike the creatures pecking grain and corn kernels out of manure on farms or the city pigeons picking up bread crumbs.
Racing pigeons required a very special mix of feed. I even found the place that supplied racing food.
On the sports pages of the daily Intelligencer Journal, the agate section (as somebody who did two staff stints as a lowly agate clerk for the Sun-Times’ sports section, I love that part) would include a small piece of fine print from the Red Rose Pigeon Club, now gone as members aged and younger people did not join.
I quickly reached what I could do in terms of training barn pigeons. I learned how to handle them and to get them to fly to me to eat grain from between my lips.
So I dug out a number for the Red Rose Pigeon Club, then found the nerve to call. The guy I reached knew a club member willing to give me an old mated pair. That was a big deal. In those days, a top racing pigeon was worth more than my dad made in a year working in a stone quarry.
There was a good reason for an old pair. While they didn’t mean much to the owner, they meant the world to me. Second, the pair would be imprinted with the old coop, but their young would be imprinted with my chicken-wire coop.
I would love to tell you I grew into a proud junior member of the club. No. While I became good at training and raising racing pigeons, soccer and girls (or the idea of girls) took over my life.
Here’s hoping some young man or woman has the chance to train racing pigeons in Chicago.
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 | Jul 23, 2018 | Bird Deterrent Products
Here lies Pippa the Pigeon, beloved mother to 28 chicks, scavenger of crisps, befouler of statues, buried here at the age of 63 (in bird years).
If this sounds unfamiliar, it is because there are no pigeon cemeteries in British cities, nor are there any pigeon crematoria, which rather begs the question: where do pigeons go when they die? According to one estimate, there are up to one million pigeons in London alone. With a life expectancy in the city of as little as four years, this suggests that several million dead pigeons should have piled up around us, but where are they all?
An expert in animal physiology has felt moved to provide an answer to the mystery. Steve Portugal, an ecophysiologist at Royal Holloway, University of London, said: “Foxes, rats, gulls, crows and ravens all do a wonderful job of cleaning up any carrion they come across, including deceased pigeons.
“Alongside these native janitors, domestic cats are equally happy to take care of a dead or injured pigeon . . . this network of surreptitious street cleaners will usually whisk away any pigeon corpses long before they’re seen by human eyes.” Dr Portugal added that when pigeons are ill or injured, they often hide. He wrote on The Conversation, a news website: “[They] instinctively retreat to dark, remote places — ventilation systems, attics, building ledges — hoping to remain out of reach and unnoticed by predators. The predators don’t see them but neither do we: often when pigeons expire they are in hiding.”
He added: “Dying of old age is not a luxury afforded to most pigeons. As soon as they shows signs of slowness or sickness, many are snapped up by peregrine falcons, sparrowhawks, or other predators.
“Whether snatched midair by birds of prey, entangled by man-made obstacles or alone in a remote corner of a skyscraper’s roof garden, there are many ways that pigeons pass on from this world. But they all take place within an internal urban ecosystem, that, for the most part, is hidden from our sight.”
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 | Jul 22, 2018 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
WASHINGTON — Court records obtained by WUSA9 show the accused shooter who killed five journalists from the Capital Gazette newspaper on Thursday spent years filing lawsuits, petitions and motions against a long list of people who came in his line of sight.
Anne Arundel county prosecutors have charged Jarrod W. Ramos with five counts of murder in the first degree.
WUSA9 sifted through more than 300 records, diving into Ramos’s history inside and outside of the courtroom.
The documents obtained by WUSA9 begin in 2011, when a woman Ramos attended high school with asked law enforcement to file charges against him for harassment. The victim told prosecutors Ramos began contacting her via the internet in 2009.
In a handwritten statement seeking a peace order, the victim told the court “initially the nature of these emails was friendly,” but said later they became “increasingly alarming, vulgar, and incoherent.” She alleged Ramos told her to harm herself and called her place of employment with a disparaging remark.
The court granted her request for a peace order in 2011, the first of at least two the victim filed and granted against Ramos.
He eventually pleaded guilty to one count of harassment on July 26th, 2011. He was sentenced to 18 months of probation, which included a responsibility to attend counseling and have no contact with the victim,-a condition he’d later seek to “clarify.”
On July 31, 2011, a reporter for the Capital Gazette, Eric Thomas Hartley, described his case in a column about internet harassment.
The story enraged Ramos.
Court records show months after the story ran, Ramos requested reconsideration of his sentence. In November 2011, a judge struck the guilty finding from the record and allowed for probation before judgment, a conditional probation before sentencing.
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)
