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Humane Ways to Keep Pigeons Off Your Property

Pigeons are as integral to city living as traffic and pollution, and perhaps as annoying and potentially dangerous. These birds can cause property damage and carry diseases. However, there are humane ways to minimize or keep pigeons off your property. Find out how, together with some alleged solutions that simply don’t work or are not recommended.

The problems with pigeons

pigeon on property

Pigeons often carry salmonella and other diseases. Their nests may harbor bird mites, bed bugs and other biting, disease-carrying insects. Because pigeon droppings are highly acidic, they can damage car paint and buildings. According to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, pigeon droppings often carry fungi or bacteria that cause the human diseases cryptococcosis, histoplasmosis and psittacosis. Exposure to these diseases happens primarily when cleaning up pigeon droppings.

Solutions that work

You may have noticed that pigeons are everywhere. To keep all pigeons off your property may be unrealistic. You can reduce nesting populations in your immediate area by inspecting your property for nests, and removing nests and eggs every two weeks. More importantly, focus on keeping pigeons out of buildings and other spaces.

Wire mesh and wire: Screen all soffit vents and other potential entry points with rust-proof wire mesh. University of Florida professor William Kern also recommends suspending a thin wire or mono filament about two inches above a railing or other potential roost, or adding sticky substances, deterring pigeons from resting on the rails.
Sheet metal: To keep pigeons off ledges and other flat potential roosts, cover them with a sloping piece of sheet metal. A slanted metal board doesn’t make much of a roost.
Bird netting: Alternatively, use bird netting to seal off spaces above barn rafters and other potential roosts.
Scare-pigeons: Try the pigeon equivalent of scarecrows. Among the most effective “scare-pigeons” are kites with hawk silhouettes and light Mylar streamers. Both move easily in the wind, scaring off birds. On the other hand, pigeons will quickly grow accustomed to a model owl that sits in one spot for a while.
Spray pigeons with water: Kern even suggests spraying pigeons with a water hose, but notes that the birds must be sprayed upon arrival, before they start to establish a regular roosting spot. Once they have established a roost, your impromptu showers won’t keep them from going home.
Pigeon traps: If you fail to exclude pigeons or prevent roosting, you may need to make a trap or buy a commercial trap. Be sure to check each trap at least once a day, and leave water in the trap, to attract more birds and minimize stress on any pigeons that get caught. Immediately release all other birds you were not aiming to catch.
Humane pest control. Find a pest control expert who specializes in humane solutions to infestation by pigeons and other unwanted creatures.

Solutions that DON’T work

Not every alleged pigeon control works. Here are a few urban legends:

Loud noises: Loud noises have been suggested for controlling birds, but they are likely to annoy neighbors more than pigeons. City birds are used to city noises, and don’t seem to startle easily.
Cheap Ultrasonic noises: Ultrasonic noises that humans cannot hear may avoid bothering your neighbors, but Kern notes that some ultrasonic sound waves bounce off objects, creating spots where pigeons can avoid the sound. Also, some ultrasonic devices may damage the hearing of cats and dogs. Although some ultrasonic units has proven to keep pigeons off your property.
Distress calls: There are no effective distress calls that can be used to target pigeons.
Poison and chemical repellents: Pigeon poisons and chemical repellents are available, but they are strictly controlled for several reasons. They can kill or sicken other birds or animals, or even somebody’s prized racing pigeon. (Yes, there are pigeon racing clubs. If you trap a tagged pigeon, click here (for information on returning it.)

Full story here

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.

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Hutchinson battles growing pigeon problems

Is Hutchinson facing growing pigeon problems? The experts agree: There are definitely more pigeons in Hutchinson these days.

growing pigeon

And with the increased population comes growing pigeon problems related both to public health and property maintenance.

Pigeons plague the Reno County Courthouse, several churches and most of the downtown area.

Many people are resigned that pigeons are a natural addition to any tall building, but some Hutchinson business owners are taking a stand.

Last week, Advance Pest Control performed a “baiting” of pigeons in the downtown area.

Advance was hired by a coalition of business owners – who have remained anonymous to The Hutchinson News – who sought to reduce the pigeon population downtown because of health concerns and property damage.

In the baiting, toxic corn was strategically placed about the downtown area.

The birds who eat the bait eventually die but first display intoxicated behavior.

“Basically, this behavior is a stress signal to the other birds, which leave the area because they sense that something is not right,” said Jeff Wells, vice president of Advance. “So it results in a great reduction in population in a specific area because of the birds who take a toxic dose as well as the repellency issue.”

The baiting has resulted in a reduced population of pigeons downtown, but Wells said he has noticed that there are more birds roosting on nearby buildings that weren’t baited.

Health, property concerns

Pigeon droppings aren’t just a nuisance or an extra chore for property owners. Because they are acidic, they actually cause property damage, eating through metal and deteriorating signs and other metal objects at a rapid rate.

The biggest growing pigeon problems, though, comes in cleaning the droppings.

Pigeon fecal matter is a breeding ground for a spore called histoplasmosis, which can cause an infection that leads to respiratory disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The infection, if it affects other organs, can be fatal if untreated.

Workers cleaning up the droppings cause histoplasmosis spores to become airborne and are infected when they breathe them in.

Pigeons are also known to carry or transmit pigeon ornithosis, encephalitis, Newcastle disease, cryptococcosis, toxoplasmosis, salmonella food poisoning and several other diseases, according to the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.

For that reason, the Kansas Department of Agriculture files the use of certain pigeon-control products under the category of public health and safety.

It’s a problem not lost on local businesses.

Next week, workers trained in safely removing pigeon waste will clean piles of pigeon droppings from the Fox Theatre marquee, which is being eroded by the waste, said board president Greg Payton.

Payton added that some theater employee illnesses have been blamed on the droppings.

Birds not protected

Pigeons are not protected by Kansas law, meaning property owners are free to dispose of them as they wish, Wells said.

But until the recent baiting, little has been done over the past seven years to control the pigeon population, which has led to the increase Hutchinson is seeing now, Wells said.

“The population has definitely increased,” Wells said. “There’s no question about that.”

In 2001, a baiting occurred, although it wasn’t performed by Advance, Wells said. A reduction in the pigeon population followed, but then the pigeon population was generally left alone except for some property owners putting up spikes or other roosting deterrents.

“These birds breed so quickly that the population explodes when nothing is done to limit them,” Wells aid.

Even some pigeon enthusiasts seem to understand the need for the population control.

“I don’t know the real solution,” said Mel Voth, a Garden City man who raises homing pigeons. “There are ways to divert them to other places, but I think a lot of folks feel like the baiting is the easiest way to reduce the population.”

Wells said there will always be a struggle between people who want pigeons eliminated and those who believe it’s wrong to kill them off, but he believes there can be a healthy compromise.

“Ultimately, we are trying to protect public health and safety, not eliminate a species of birds,” he said. “I place the safety of my kids above the population of pigeons. When the population reaches a certain point, it becomes an issue and something needs to be done.”

Source of the Story

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 issues in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions.

The new pigeon wars

The New Pigeon Wars. Rats with wings, or majestic streetwise bird? It’s a debate that’s raged almost as long as New York City has been called that. And this week, the war of pigeon between the two sides boiled over again.

A man feeds the pifeons in Times Square in 1949 (and was probably beaten a short time later.)

Pigeon wars started when the exclusive University Club had its feathers ruffled. It wanted to drape its storied building in netting, to protect it from pigeon poo, which eats away at stone and metal. But the Landmarks Commission said it would have to wait for approval, as it would be a “visible change” to the land marked Italian Renaissance building’s facade. As if the crap wasn’t a “visible change” enough.

Meanwhile, over on East 93rd Street, there was a scuffle involving longtime pigeon activist Anna Dove and her neighbor, who snatched away her bag of seed after he saw her feeding the pigeons on the sidewalk. The police were summoned.

“It’s disgusting,” said her nemesis, retired teacher Arthur Schwartz. “She’s feeding the rats.”

And with the live pigeon-shooting state championships in Pennsylvania coming up, it’s almost guaranteed that there will be an increase in demand of pigeon-poaching — New York City is a favorite spot for trapping them and transporting them to be used as live targets. The animal-rights activists will be out with their cameras and signs to stop them.

No matter which side you’re on, one things for certain — by the end, things are going to get a little birdbrained.

“It’s not the pigeons that are the problem, it’s the number of them,” says Andrew D. Blechman, author of “Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird.” “They’re gentle creatures. The problem is that they get in our face, just like we get in each other’s faces.”

No one one’s quite sure of how many pigeons are in New York City. One adage is “one pigeon per person,” which would put their numbers at about 7 million. They each produce about 25 pounds of waste per year.

Pigeons love cities because of the many ledges, windowsills, eaves and rooftops available for them to roost in, which mimics their natural habitat of high cliffs. Pigeon pairings are monogamous, often mating for life, and both parents raise the babies — called squab — for a time, sitting on the eggs in shifts.

The pigeon includes about 298 species of bird, but the Rock Dove is the most common to the New York area, according to the Parks Department. The grey, bobbing-headed birds usually have purple-green iridescence around the neck area. They’re the scruffiest members of the dove family — although “dove” usually connotes the pure white symbols of peace, not the pizza scavengers of city streets. (Just say they’ve been pigeonholed.)

“If they were white,” Blechman says, “people would love them.”

Blame the French for our pigeon problems. The little pluckers first arrived in the early 1600s with French settlers who used them for meat. They were easy to raise — they could be kept in a barn, where they’d perch on the rafters, and young pigeons served as a good source of protein.

But they soon escaped their confines and went feral.

City life agreed with them and allowed them to flourish — and in some cases, over-flourish. Their natural predators, like falcons and hawks, aren’t found here in great numbers.

Courtney Humphries, author of “Superdove: How the Pigeon Took Manhattan . . . And the World,” concedes that pigeon are pilloried partly because of their “persistence. They nest on the buildings we consider our territory, and they don’t like to be moved.”

The average city pigeon has a lifespan of three to five years. With all the food scattered throughout the garbage cans and sidewalks — plus well-meaning human feeders — they spend less time looking for grub, which leaves more time for mating.

“The biggest problem is the people who overfeed them,” says Blechman. “Every city has about a dozen of them, and they’re the ones who cause the [overpopulation] problem.”

He suggests that if you want to feed the birds, hand out just a teaspoon full of birdseed for a flock. “It’s just enough to give them a little extra energy while they’re out trying to find their own food.”

“If nobody fed pigeons, I think things would look a lot different,” agrees Humphries, who says that human feeders end up creating dense flocks. “A lot of the problem with pigeons comes from people.”

If you can’t freeze the hearts of little old ladies, though, you could try eating them (the pigeons, that is). Squab — baby pigeons that haven’t flown yet — is on the menu at many restaurants around the city, particularly French. They’re “basically the milk-fed veal of the sky,” says Blechman — tender, mostly dark meat, and one of the only poultry that can be eaten rare. (Pigeons produce their own milk-like substance, which they feed to their young by regurgitation.)

Pigeon pot pie was a huge colonial favorite. Today, try the Squab and Foie Croustillant at the Modern, Danny Meyer’s restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art.

Unless the appetite for squab skyrockets, New York’s options are few. Avicide — poisoning birds — was made illegal in 2000, when the state Legislature passed a bill outlawing the use of “flock dispersal agents” like Avitrol in cities with more than 1 million people.

Before that, property managers regularly hired pest control services to dole out Avatrol to flocks of pigeons.

“In theory, you would mix it with feed, and when one pigeon ate some of the treated food, they would begin to suffer from neurological toxicity,” explained Stephanie Boyles, wildlife expert at the Humane Society of the United States. “When their flockmates saw them suffering, it would prompt them to leave the area.”

In practice, however, overdosing often led to large numbers of birds convulsing and writhing in pain on the street before their deaths. Welcome to New York!

The last major flare-up of pigeon wars was in 2007, when City Councilman Simcha Felder released a report plaintively titled, “Curbing the Pigeon Conundrum.”

Claiming that their droppings carried a host of diseases like histoplasmosis, he proposed a $1,000 fine to anyone feeding them, as well as curbing their numbers through birth control (a measure that cities like Los Angeles have adopted, although some argue that it’s unsustainable), and appointing a city “Pigeon Czar” to oversee other pigeon-control issues.

The NYC Department of of Health and Mental Hygiene maintains that contact with their droppings only poses a small health risk, and that “routine cleaning of droppings (e.g. from windowsills) does not pose a serious health risk to most people,” although disposable gloves are a good idea.

The Humane Society came out against the anti-feeding fine because they weren’t sure it would actually make a difference in reducing flocks, said Boyles. “We still suggest working with communities to create places where pigeons are welcome, and discouraging them where they’re not.”

While Felder’s bill didn’t fly, it was only one of many efforts to keep pigeons clipped.

In 2006, pigeon loitering was so dense near the Army Recruitment Center in Times Square, speakers were set up to broadcast sounds of falcons and pigeons being attacked, in hopes of scaring them away. In 2003, they had so overwhelmed Bryant Park that the operators invited a falconer and his hawk to the park for a week to scare away (not eat) the pigeons.

In 2007, the MTA installed Bird-B-Gone on some of its elevated stations along the 7 line, as well as others. The electronic system zapped birds that got too close.

In the ’80s, plastic owls were a big seller. Today, a slightly more high-tech version, called the RoboHawk, moves its head, wings, and makes what its creators hope are pigeon-threatening sounds.

Every so often, a politician considers reviving an overall anti-feeding bill, since, for now, it’s only illegal in city parks where signs are posted (the fine is usually $50).

Some cling to the hope that the city will come to its senses and declare war. Because they’re a non-native species, pigeons are not protected by either the Federal Migratory Birds Act or New York state laws. Can anyone say hunting season?

It’s got to be done mafia-style, though. Culling is only a temporary solution — as with most wild birds, quick breeding will put their numbers back to pre-cull figures within weeks, according to Pigeon Control Advisory Service.

But spare a thought, pigeon haters, for your majestic foe. Pigeons have more qualities than you think.

Although city birds aren’t particularly active, pigeons are built to be athletes — a trained bird can fly up to 60 miles per hour, and they can stay in the air for 500 miles. They’re meant for flying long distances, and have “homing” instincts, which means they will naturally find their way back.

This talent is why they were literally drafted into the United States Army Pigeon Service.

A million served in both world wars, where they delivered messages across enemy lines and saved thousands of soldiers’ lives. One pigeon, Cher Ami, won a French medal for his bravery for flying through gunfire, finally delivering the message dangling from what was left of his foot. He’s now stuffed and in the Smithsonian.

The army’s Pigeon Breeding and Training Center was based at Fort Monmouth, NJ, and opened in 1917. Many of its “Pigeoneers” were “basically just boys out of Brooklyn, and they’d just bring their best birds,” Humphries says. (The training center was closed in 1957 when the Army stopped using them as messengers.)

Keeping pigeons on rooftops — and racing them — used to be much more popular. Who can forget Marlon Brando’s character in the 1954 film “On the Waterfront” shouting up to his friend Joey, “I got one of your birds!” right before Joey “accidentally” falls off the roof?

The city is full of equally vocal bird-lovers.

“They animate our lives,” argues Blechman, who says that despite writing a book on pigeons, he is not a “bird person,” and admits to having eaten them before. He’s come around, though. “You look out the window and you can have a pigeon land on your windowsill, and the same one will come back every day, and at the same time.

“What would the lonely, the unemployed, and the elderly do every day if it weren’t for pigeons?”

The Internet is atwitter with kooky pigeon fans. There’s a pigeon appreciation society on Facebook. On photo-sharing site Flickr, there’s a group called The Global Pigeon Art Appreciation Society.

“You are not alone,” the site reads. “Many artists have been inspired by pigeons.”

There is also a city listserv called “New York Pigeon People,” where members discuss how to rescue birds and share pigeon news.

You can eat them, race them, breed them, feed them, but you can’t escape them, whether you consider them the most misunderstood creatures of the flying community or the world’s worst bird. As Blechman put it, “We’re just going to have to learn to co-exist.”

The Source from NY Post

About Pigeon Patrol

THE PIGEON ISSUE

As one wanders through the great piazzas of Italy — the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, Piazza San Pietro in Rome, and the Piazza San Marco in Venice — one cannot help notice the magnificent facades of government buildings and churches, the impressive works of sculpture in marble and bronze, and… the pigeons. They have become tourist attractions in their own right, and for a small fee one can buy a bag of seed and turn oneself into a human bird feeder. The end result is predictable. As food is more than ample, the birds do not leave but multiply (the incubation period for a pigeon egg is a scant 17 to 19 days), and seeking homes nearby, they settle and nest on statues and buildings in close proximity. In turn, the pigeon waste, often inches thick, eats away at their surfaces, causing irreparable damage.

First of all, let me not suggest that Italy is the only country to face serious pigeon infestation. London’s Trafalgar Square is home to an estimated 30,000 flying citizens. Mayor Ken Livingstone actually used pigeon reduction as a campaign platform, effectively planning to starve them out, though his efforts have been thwarted by an animal-rights group, the aptly named Pigeon Alliance Issue.
pigeon problem

What to do? A controversial, and by no means long term, solution is to “eliminate” the problem itself, and in fact, more pigeon carcasses have be seen on the streets of Florence in the last year or two. And yet the sale of feed in the piazzas continues, perpetuating a rather cruel and pointless cycle.

Yet if one cannot eliminate the pigeons, it seems that the next best option would be to keep the pigeons off of the statues and buildings altogether. To this end, high-tech solutions, even ridiculous ones, have been sought. Following the technicolor restoration of Maderno’s facade of St. Peters in Rome for the 2000 Jubilee, an electrostatic system was installed to repel the birds. And in a ironic twist, the town of Assisi in Italy has followed suit. Yes, the basilica founded by St. Francis, the saint who preached to the birds, has installed electric wires to discourage pigeons from landing on the 13th century building. They’ve even gone so far as to enact an ordinance that forbids their feeding in public spaces.

Statues have also been given an electric jolt. Most notably, Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus, which underwent a 3-year long, highly-publicized restoration, complete with video-installation and CD-rom, was returned to its original outdoor location in the Loggia dei Lanzi in 2001, complete with pigeon-deterring wires. These raised electrified braces have also been attached to nearby Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabine, seemingly to no effect, since birds can still be found perched safely upon the desperate woman’s head. Clearly the aesthetic results are less than ideal, though in other cases riskier treatments have been applied, as in the case of the monument to Lord Nelson in Trafalgar Square, where the statue has been coated with what has been described as “anti-pidgeon gel”. At the very least, sculptures are covered with microcrystalline wax, as in the case of Bandinelli’s Giovanni delle Bande Nere, situated in the major pigeon colony of Piazza San Lorenzo, where the unfinished facade of the church has become some of the best avian real-estate in the city.

There are less-invasive alternatives. Protective netting can be mounted over architectural reliefs and the like to prevent occupation by birds. In Trafalgar Square, air horns have also been employed to scatter the animals, exchanging bird pollution for noise pollution.

In reality it seems that there are only two reasonable solutions to the pigeon issue. One has been implemented for quite some time, and is practical only in terms of sculpture, which is to move the originals inside. This not only has the benefit of “guano protection,” but also of preventing damage to works by other forms of environmental pollution. To have undergone the intensive restoration to the Perseus, only to subject it to the same conditions, is absurd, and only assures us that future interventions will be required, ad infinitum.

For architecture, the same solution cannot be implemented, but several protective measures seem feasible. For one, even if the complete cessation of pigeon-feeding has been deemed inhumane, at least the migration of the birds to a less urban area would suffice. In other words, should one want to feed the birds, it would be welcomed in a park, not a stones-throw from a major monument. And finally the caretakers of these monuments must commit to a plan of good old-fashioned washings on a regular basis, so that major, and inevitably harmful, interventions do not become necessary.

By Denise Budd from Source

About Pigeon Patrol

Pigeon problem

Feral pigeons cause damage to property. Pigeons roost on ledges and sloping roofs.

They:

destroy insulation
deface surfaces
block pipes and gutters with droppings. Their droppings are acidic and eat away at buildings and machinery, which can lead to secondary damage such as wet rot

Pigeons also carry diseases which can prove fatal for humans and pose serious risks to public health, with the young and the old being especially vulnerable, such as:

psittacosis, a type of pneumonia, which can kill
candida albicans which can be the cause of skin diseases
shigella species causes vomiting and diarrhoea
ornithosis, a flu-like disease borne by birds
chiamdiosis, a virus similar to influenza
campylobacter coli, which may cause food poisoning
pigeon droppings and dead carcasses can contain a variety of mites and insects which can cause allergic reactions in humans

A pigeon’s perspective

Although feeding pigeons might appear to be a kind act, it is not. Food such as bread and cake gives them diarrhoea and induces vitamin B and calcium deficiency. Vitamin B deficiency can cause paralysis in pigeons. Pigeons are scavengers and are well equipped to find their own sources of food.

Food supplied by the public leads to the arrival of more pigeons and increased breeding rates. Feral pigeons deprive other birds of food and spread mites and other parasites throughout their ever-increasing number of breeding sites.

Licensed pest control contractors need to be hired to exterminate and control pigeons. The kindest and most economic way of achieving this is to allow pigeons to continue their natural feeding habits by taking away their dependence on food from people.

Rats

When food is left out for pigeons it is also left for rats. As with pigeons, the more food rats have access to, the more they will breed. Rats are a major health hazard. They contaminate human food with:

their droppings
urine
hair

They are the carriers of many diseases eg. Weil’s disease and salmonellosis. Rats also cause structural damage. They burrow under the foundations of buildings and damage drains and sewers. They also gnaw through electrical cables which is a fire hazard.

What can you do?

avoid feeding pigeons and allow them to pursue a natural life of foraging for food
food litter should never be left on the ground
ensure that all food waste is contained within enclosed waste bins
if you wish to feed birds, prepare birdseed and place on bird tables where a variety of species can gain access
it is sometimes possible to scare pigeons away letting them know that a location is not a suitable nesting site. Placing a piece of string with silver foil attached in the allotted area has worked in some instances

Professional pest controllers may be able to prevent pigeons landing on roofs, balconies and other areas by utilizing many of the products available in pigeon proofing.

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Chlamydial infections in feral pigeons in Europe: Review of data and focus on public health implications.

close up of pigeon Feral pigeons (Columba livia domestica), which thrive in most European towns and cities, are commonly infected with the zoonotic bacterium Chlamydophila psittaci, the agent of psittacosis (also known as ornithosis) in humans. A number of surveys carried out over the last thirty years across Europe have detected high seropositivity values and high percentages of infection in feral pigeon populations. Overall, when considering data from 11 European countries, seropositivity values to C. psittaci in the sampled populations ranged from 19.4% to 95.6%. In most surveys, the complement fixation test was used, and antibodies were detected in 19.4-66.3% of the samples, with a median of 46.1%. Indirect immunofluorescence and ELISA tests were employed less frequently, but led to the detection of higher percentages of seropositivity (23.7-67.7% and 35.9-95.6%, respectively). Attempts to grow C. psittaci in cell culture or embryonated chicken eggs were successful in 2-42.3% and 0-57.1% of samples, respectively, antigen detection methods were positive in 2.3-40% of samples, while conventional PCR and real-time PCR using different genomic targets detected the organism in 3.4-50% of samples. Twenty-five C. psittaci isolates from pigeons were typed as ompA genotype B (n=14), E (n=10) and E/B (n=1). The huge increase of feral pigeon populations in Europe is a major cause of concern for the detrimental effect of pigeon droppings on environmental hygiene, in addition to the extensive damage due to the fouling of buildings and monuments. The most important pathogenic organism transmissible from feral pigeons to humans is C. psittaci, with 101 cases of disease reported in the literature. Exposure to C. psittaci-contaminated dust, direct contact with pigeons through handling and, to a lesser extent, through pigeon feeding have been identified as hazardous exposures in more than half of the human cases, while loose or transient contacts with feral pigeons have been mentioned in about 40% of the cases.

Education initiatives as to the communication of a health risk resulting from contact with pigeons and pigeon excreta should primarily be targeted at individuals who may be exposed to C. psittaci-contaminated dust, such as demolition/construction workers. Recommendations to this category of workers include wearing protective clothes with hoods, boots, gloves and air filter face masks when removing pigeon faeces from roofs, garrets and buildings, especially if working indoors. Monitoring for C. psittaci infections in these workers over time should also be considered. Children should be warned not to handle sick or dead pigeons, and immunocompromised individuals should be advised to carefully limit their contact to feral pigeons. Culling of pigeons by shooting or poisoning is both unethical and ineffective as the place of the killed birds in the population is quickly filled by new juveniles or immigrating birds from neighbouring areas. Pigeon-deterring systems, such as nets and plastic or metal spikes applied to buildings and monuments will prevent their fouling, and the administration of contraceptive drugs may allow size regulation of the pigeon populations. Nevertheless, the measure that will ultimately lead to permanent reduction and will establish healthy sustainable populations is the restriction of indiscriminate feeding by pigeon lovers. The erection of dovecotes and artificial breeding facilities should be considered for providing shelter and a balanced diet to the birds, as well as a chance of interaction for pigeon lovers in a hygienically controlled environment.

-Vet Microbiol

PIGEON ASSOCIATED PEOPLE DISEASES

Bird droppings on building window

Feral pigeons (Columbia livia) are not harmless birds. Many potential infections of humans silently exist in pigeons which are not apparent. They have the potential for transmission of over 30 diseases to humans plus another ten to domestic animals. Environmental pollution from pigeon droppings is quite evident. Air pollution involves more than noxious gases from automobile exhausts and belching smokestacks. One serious air pollutant is air-borne fungi, which are agents for infectious diseases. There is much information written about the problem, but it remains primarily in the professional journals and technical references, neatly stacked away on library shelves. The objective of this paper is to provide a brief account of the major diseases and to assess their importance. Feral pigeons have been identified with mycotic, bacterial, protozoal, chlamydial, rickettsial, and parasitic diseases as well as dermatosis (Weber 1979). MYCOTIC diseases are not transmitted from humans to humans. Perhaps this is why they do not make the headlines. The fungi causing the diseases are acquired by inhaling the fruiting bodies or spores along with particles of dust. The fungi live saprophytically in feces and soil. Aspergillosis is caused by Aspergillus fumagatus. The fungus produces toxins which poison the victim’s blood. Pigeons assist the spread of the spores in airborne dust. Blastomycosis is caused by Blastomyces dermatitidus. It primarily affects the lungs; the main route of infection is by inhalation of spores. The organism has been isolated from pigeon manure. Candidiasis is caused by Candida spp., chiefly C. albicans. Nearly one-fourth of all mycotic deaths are caused by this yeast. It often affects the mouth, respiratory system, intestines, and urogenital tract, especially the vagina. Incidence of candidiasis (yeast infection) in women is an increasing problem. The discomfort of the itching, pain, and discharge caused by the growth of this fungus is.

ignificant enough to warrant the elimination of pigeons which are one of the three wild birds most frequently infected with Candida. Cryptococcosis is caused by a systemic pathogenic yeast called Cryptococcosus neoformans. No organ or tissue of the body is exempt. It very frequently involves the brain covering as cryptococcal meningitis. One Indianapolis victim spent 91 days in the hospital with cryptococcosis. The yeast is carried in the intestinal tract of pigeons and deposited in their feces (Newberry 1967). One Kansas City survey showed that 93% of the pigeon coops were infected. Histoplasmosis is caused by Histoplasma capsulatum. It is interesting to note that the disease was suggested at one time as a biological warfare agent because of its airborne route (Furcolow, personal communication, 1960). It is probably the second most significant fungus disease. The “summer flu” that midwesterners used to get is now thought to have been histoplasmosis (Personal communication, American Lung Association, 1974). It is basically a pulmonary disease but may extend to the liver, lymph nodes, and spleen. The organism may disseminate to the blood and bone marrow and be fatal. It may lodge in the eye to cause ocular histoplasmosis. Twenty-two cases were reported to the Indiana Board of Health in 1976. Pigeon feces fertilize the soil in such a way as to give the fungus competitive advantage over other soil microorganisms. The largest outbreak ever recorded occurred in Indianapolis during the winter of 1978-79 with over 450 confirmed cases. There were 18 deaths. BACTERIAL DISEASES identified with pigeons are listed. Erysipeloid generally starts in a break in the skin and is accompanied with a sensation of burning, throbbing pain, and intense itching. It is caused by Erysipelothrus insidiosis. Pigeons are involved in its transmission. Listeriosis is caused by Listeria monocytogenes. It causes changes in the cells of the nervous system. It may cause conjunctivitis, endocarditis, and skin infections. It can also cause meningitis in newborns, abortions, premature delivery, stillbirths, and death. The organism has been isolated from pigeons. Parteurellosis is caused by a highly contagious bacteria, Pasteurella multicida. The 157 disease may be divided in four groups of syndromes: 1) infection of the upper respiratory tract as nasal discharge or conjuntivitis, 2) infection of the lower respiratory tract as bronchitis or pneumonia, 3) infecton of internal organs as appendicitis or inflammation of the urinary tract, 4) abscessed wound infections. Pigeons can spread the bacteria through their droppings or nasal discharge. The organism can live as long as a month in pigeon manure or three months in a dead pigeon. Salmonellosis is more than food poisoning. Gastroenteritis is the most common manifestation. Enteric fever or septicemia may follow several weeks later as a relapse. Septicemias often terminate fatally. Persistent infections are less common but very important. There may be an abscess or local infection as arthritis, bronchopneumonia, endocarditis, meningitis, osteomyelitis, or pyeleonephritis. Pigeons are important in the spread of salmonellae, since the bacteria are left wherever the pigeons defecate (MÜller 1965). They trample back and forth through their copious excretion on window ledges and air intake vents. Dusts to contaminate food or homes enter through air conditioners and ventilators. The most common salmonella Isolated from pigeons is Salmonella typhimurum var. Copenhagen, which is found in about 2% of pigeon feces (MÜller 1965). Yersiniosis is a plague-like disease by Yersinia pseudotuberculosos and Y. enterocolitica. The disease is clinically indistinguishable from appendicitis. Both diseases cause fever, nausea, headache, hard and painful stomachs. Because of the similarity, there were 32 school children hospitalized in Oneida County, New York in September 1976. Fourteen were reported to have had unnecessary appendectomies. Y.enterocolitica serotype 8 was isolated from the ill children. It was first isolated from pigeons in 1916. Transmission may be through the feces, eggs, or ticks of pigeons (Hubert 1972). PROTOZOAN diseases include American trypansomiasis, toxoplasmosis, and trichomoniasis. American trypanosomiasis is caused by Trypanosoma cruzi. There is no vaccine, effective treatment, or cure for the disease. It is transmitted through the feces of infected triatimid bugs, as the pigeon kissing bug (Triatoma rubrofasciata). The bugs tend to feed at night while the victim is asleep the bug defecates during or soon after engorgement, and most human infections occur when the bug feces are rubbed into eyes or mucous membranes following a bite. Toxoplasmosis may be one of the most widespread zoonotic diseases in the United States. It is caused by Toxoplasma gondii. It has been shown to cause abortions in women (W.J. Schneider, personal communication, 1977). The organism seems to have an affinity for brain tissue; it may cause mental retardation and death. Pigeons frequently transmit toxoplasmosis through fecal contamination, respiratory droplets, eye secretions, contact with infected tissue, or through ectoparasites. Trichomoniasis is caused by Trichomonas gallinae. It may affect the genital tract. Pigeons are considered the primary host, with about 80-90% of the adults infected. VIRAL diseases include encephalitis, meningitis, and Newcastle. Eastern equine encephalomyelitis (EEE) is the most deadly of the North American arbovirus diseases. It has been known to cause mental retardation, convulsions, and paralysis. The mortality rate may be around 60%. Pigeons are considered an amplifying host for the virus (Fothergill et. al. 1938). St. Louis encephalitis (SLE) affects the nervous system, ranging from complete recovery to disorganization, paralysis, coma, and death. The mortality rate is usually 5-10%, in some cases up to 33%. Pigeons, English sparrows, and house finches are the three birds labeled as main reservoirs of SLE. West Nile encephalitis ranges from mild to fatal Infections. The virus has been isolated from pigeons. Western equine encephalomyelitis is much more present and dangerous than most people think. The fatality rate has been between 5 and 15%. Children under one year of age may never recover from an infection of the virus, often becoming total vegetables. Pigeons are one of the amplifying hosts (W.F. Rathel, personal communication, 1977). Meningitis causes as inflammation of the brain and its covering. Pigeons are subject to meningo-encephalitis. Newcastle disease often involves conjunctivitis, lacrimation, and a mild influenza-like infection. Pigeons are the third largest common carrier; the virus has been detected in their feces. CHLAMYDIAL and RICKETTSIAL diseases. Chlamydiosis, caused by Chlamydia psittiaci, is a generalized infectious disease that causes a flu-like respiratory infection with high fever, severe headache, and generalized aches and pains. Mortality is usually 158 restricted to the old, the weak, or those with concurrent disease. Pigeons are the most common and consistent source of all known hosts (Terskiph 1961). Over half of the pigeon population is or has been infected. Q fever is caused by Coxiella burnetti. It is characterized by a sudden onset of pneumonitis, sometimes causing death. Pigeons are involved as carriers (Syrcuek et al. 1956). Investigators have isolated C. burnetti from the Kidneys of a large number of pigeons. The disease can be transmitted by infected ticks, ingestion, or by inhalation of dust contaminated with the organism. PARASITIC WORMS include cestodes and trematodes. Taeniasis by large tapeworm is caused by Taenia saginata, with specimens up to 50 feet having been recovered. Pigeons have been incriminated as potential vectors. Schistosomiasis, one of the most prevalent diseases throughout the world, is caused by a water-borne trematode. Pigeons are associated with flukes in the watery areas where they exist. Other pigeon associated trematodes include Echinoparyphium paraulum, Echinoparyphium recurvatum, Echinostoma revolutum, Haplorchis pulimio, and Hypoderaeum conoideum. DERMATOSIS. Acariasis is caused by infection of mites. Bird mites were responsible for a case of pruritis in a North Carolina hospital. The mites originated in a pigeon nest in the ventilator.

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Elise Stolte: Gleaning wisdom from an ancient approach to pigeon poop

We call them flying rats and we trap, poison or push the nuisance birds away from bridges and the ledges of downtown buildings.

But perhaps pigeons are just misunderstood. At least, that’s what a group of university researchers think. They’re testing a new, er, old approach, really, to the problem of pigeon poop.

By this time next year, they’ll have at least one attractive stone “pigeon cote” to house the birds, attracting them to one place in order to concentrate the poop and use it as fertilizer. It works with nature, rather than controlling it, and aims to restore an ancient, mutually-beneficial relationship that modern society simply forgot.

Yuck. Yes, I know. But intriguing as well. As city council heads into a week full of tough environmental decisions, I wonder if there’s a broader wisdom here that can help.

But first, these pigeons.

Pigeons really are the flying kings of poop. One study found they poop up to 40 times a day, although English researcher Kristine Kowalchuk would put that closer to 10, based on what she saw from a rescued baby pigeon.

She was walking out of the Art Gallery of Alberta one afternoon in the spring of 2016 when she found the tiny bird sitting quietly in the gutter. She picked it up, carried it home and raised it in her spare room until it was too big and messy to keep any longer.

That’s what got her thinking about pigeons, and the many references to squab (young pigeon) and the excellence of pigeon droppings as fertilizer she found littered throughout 17th century cookbooks and farming manuals during her English PhD.

It turns out farmers across Europe and North Africa would create large houses for free-ranging pigeons in fields or above their homes so that the birds would roost in one spot. That way both the young birds and poop could be harvested.

A pigeon cote in the Cottswolds region of England. Researcher Kristine Kowalchuk has been studying the role cotes played in a previous mutually-beneficial relationship between pigeons and humans. KRISTINE KOWALCHUK

Now Kowalchuk and several other University of Alberta researchers (an environmental sociologist, a philosopher and a professor of art and design) are using a $7,500 grant to build their own pigeon cote. It’s being built on a farm near Camrose because none of the five organizations with pigeon problems they contacted here in the city would entertain the idea.

They’re hoping a year observing the cote in action will change attitudes.

“We have so many misconceptions and cultural bias,” says Kowalchuk, citing studies measuring the risk of getting sick from being around the poop as tiny, akin to getting sick from a pet dog or breaking a leg from slipping on a dandelion. The person shovelling it out periodically would simply wear a mask.

Plus, the cote itself doesn’t increase populations; only feeding them does that, she says. “Our parks and flower beds could all benefit. … Another way of looking at pigeons is entirely possible.”

I love the simplicity of Kowalchuk’s approach. I love the way it turns our pigeon problem on its head, resets a relationship.

That’s why I’ll be pondering pigeons as council wrestles with the environment file next week: first with its greenhouse gas reduction targets on Tuesday, then with waste management Thursday and a proposed ban on single-use plastics.

Because pigeon control isn’t the only area where humans expect we can control and build our way out of a mess with technology. We pave large parking lots and wonder why we have flooding. We cut trees and seem puzzled at the heat and dust of the city. We set out one big bag of all our trash and wonder why garbage fees keep rising.

I don’t think a single-use plastic ban will help much. It’s too narrow and complicated to administer. I’d rather see small fees for bags at the grocery store combined with measures that actually change a culture — like neighbourhood-level composting with free soil in exchange for yard waste drop-offs.

As for curbing carbon emissions, city officials have a long list of actions needed, from incentivizing electric cars to expanding district energy. But I don’t think technology is enough to solve this issue, not without a cultural change. Perhaps the lessons of pigeon poop will help there, too.

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The pigeon prohibition will come into effect May 2020.

The 3,400 kg chandelier had been affixed days earlier by a web of thin metal cables to the underside of Vancouver’s Granville St. Bridge, a space that has long been an unwelcoming dead zone. Despite its heft, the translucent sculpture looks ethereal against the towering cement bridge supports. A crowd had gathered, not so much to hear renowned Vancouver conceptual artist Rodney Graham thank Isaac Newton for inspiring the piece he calls Spinning Chandelier, developer Ian Gillespie who bankrolled the $4.8 million sculpture or the many crafts people at the artists’ foundry in Walla Walla, Wash. who constructed it from more than 600 polyurethane crystals and stainless steel. They were waiting for the moment when the chandelier would be illuminated, slowly descend and then spin before rising again to its resting spot with lights off: a cycle it will repeat twice a day.

When the switch was flicked, Spinning Chandelier lit up like the 200-year-old French chandelier upon which it was modelled. There were cheers from the well turned out audience, who looked to be mostly neighbourhood folk living in condominiums, many with views of nearby False Creek.

One woman in a full-length fur coat admired the artwork but wondered how they would control pigeon droppings which are the bane of artists world-wide. Claud Brunelle who has lived in the area for more than 20 years applauded the sculpture which will be the centrepiece of an artsy gathering space—eventually photographs will be projected against the bridge struts—edged by shops and cafes. “We never really had anything down here. Now we are getting a grocery store and a London Drugs. This is going to revitalize the whole area.”

Of course, this being Vancouver where the gap between rich and poor is widening, not everyone is as enthusiastic about this or any other move that smacks of gentrification. Backlash against the sculpture erupted before the official unveiling from people, mostly on the political left, who hadn’t yet seen it. In part it was a reaction to the high cost of the sculpture which fulfilled Gillespie’s public art contribution for a luxury tower called Vancouver House adjacent to the bridge. The city requires developers to contribute $1.2 million toward public art for developments over 100,000 square feet, says Erick Fredericksen, Vancouver’s head of public art. In this case, Gillespie was permitted to bundle his art contribution from Vancouver House and three other developments to pay for Graham’s signature piece.

The disapprobation is exacerbated by the location and symbolism of the chandelier—a vision of opulence in the type of space where homeless people seek shelter. When the first photographs of the artwork appeared, Twitter erupted with critiques from Vancouver’s left pointing out the sculpture is only a few kilometres from a downtown park where homeless people have been living in a tent city for more than a year. Among those voices was Carrie Bercic, a city activist and former school trustee. “It really breaks my heart,” she says. “I’m certainly in favour of public art and I’m in no way disparaging the obvious talent of this artist.” But in a city facing an opioid and homelessness crisis, it’s money that could be put to better use, she says. “It looks like a symbol of disparity between the haves and have nots in this city.”

Critics like Bercic are unmoved or perhaps don’t know that in addition to the public art contribution, Gillespie’s company Westbank was required by the city to build 106 units of rental housing and contributed $17 million in community amenity contributions and development cost charges in exchange for rezoning the Vancouver House site. The city can use that money to help pay for social housing, childcare spaces, heritage conservation and cultural facilities, to name a few.

Still, there those in Vancouver who won’t cut Gillespie any slack, regardless of his contributions. A collector of couture gowns who muses poetic about the value of beauty, Gillespie often faces backlash from Vancouverites priced out of the housing market over the past decade. In lefty circles his name is synonymous with the boom in luxury condos, which he unabashedly markets to overseas buyers who in turn are blamed for pushing up property values.

Since 2000, the value of Vancouver real estate has increased by more than 300 per cent. And the benchmark price of a detached home in the city, although lower than it was last year, is still $1.2 million. Although there are plenty of other developers building luxury condos and selling into the same market, Gillespie gets more than his share of the flack probably because he is one of the most successful. He defends his buildings and the art in and around them as beautiful and important cultural additions to the city and blames government inaction, not foreign buyers, for the city’s lack of affordable housing.

Fredericksen points out the city has an art committee that vets public art projects, but the whole process takes a fairly hands-off approach. He says developing the nowhere land under Granville Bridge mirrors an international trend of cities trying to make better use of the unused space under bridges and freeways. New York has been working on uses for space under elevated portion of FDR Drive and Seattle has built dog and skateboard parks beneath an elevated section of the I-5.

There is, he points out, another way to look at the transformative effect the city hopes Spinning Chandelier will have on the space under the Granville Bridge. “It’s a big move to point to this very industrial infrastructural landscape as public realm.” Part of what a chandelier hung under there does, he says, is domesticate the space, albeit in a “really scaled up sort of way.”

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On Givo Hassko’s Maple Ridge property, there are Indian fantails

On Givo Hassko’s Maple Ridge property, there are Indian fantails, Budapest short-faced tumblers, and any other number of trained pigeons that he’s either bought, bred or fostered over the years.

A director for the Vancouver Poultry & Fancy Pigeon Association, Hassko estimates there are around 300 pigeon owners across the Lower Mainland. He says he’s heard from many of them, outraged by the District of North Vancouver’s recent ban on the birds.”It does not seem in any way correct how they’re going by it,” he said.

Prior to council passing the bylaw, staff said the only active complaint file the district had was from newly elected councillor Betty Forbes — and the only person they could identify who had pigeons was her next-door neighbour.Pigeon feud: North Vancouver approves ban targeting councillor’s neighbour

Forbes recused herself from the vote and discussion, but Hassko says members of the pigeon community are worried it will set a precedent in other communities where the birds are currently allowed.”It’s not just about our pigeons anymore,” he said.”It’s more about what your neighbour next door can to do to you if they don’t feel like you belong in that little area.”

Indian Fantail pigeons belonging to Hassko. (Maggie MacPherson/CBC)Pigeons allowed in most of Metro Van

Before the vote, District of North Vancouver staff admitted they hadn’t done extensive research on pigeon rules throughout Metro Vancouver.

But a CBC News analysis of regional animal control bylaws found only two other municipalities explicitly banning poultry, with only the District of North Vancouver explicitly signalling out pigeons.Several other communities, including Vancouver, Richmond and Surrey have specific rules around how many pigeons a person could have, or how they need to be cared for.

Hassko said the district’s previous rules allowing pigeons, enacted in 1971, “was one of the best bylaws in the Lower Mainland,” and that a ban usually only incentivizes people to keep pigeons secretly, free of regulation.He also believes the district had several alternatives to resolve the dispute without resorting to a ban.

“They could have easily picked up a phone and emailed and said ‘hey, can you help us with this bylaw and this situation?'” he said.

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An Aerial view The City’s downtown core in Regina,

An Aerial view The City’s downtown core in Regina, SK. on Thursday, August 22, 2013. Salthaven West director of rehabilitation, Megan Lawrence, believes some downtown businesses may be putting out poison to deter pigeons. Several Regina pest control companies contacted by the Leader-Post said they do offer Avitrol, but it can only be administered in commercial and industrial areas and isn’t for retail sale. A trained pest control employee must administer it.

Instead of poison, Lawrence recommends removing structures where pigeons could roost and screen off air conditioning units where they might drink water from. Bristling wires, which prevent pigeons from landing, can also be purchased from a pest control retailer and installed.“If they’re up on the roof and you start seeing them build nest, remove all nesting materials,” she said. “The more times that happens they’re going to realize this isn’t a place (they can) nest.”

Saskatoon woman says people may be using neurotoxin to poison local pigeons

A Saskatoon woman who helps restore injured birds to health is calling on the City of Saskatoon to help curb a trend she says concerns her. Jan Shadick runs Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation. She says that since Jan. 1, people have called her about 35 dead pigeons.

Rate of ‘kidnapped’ baby hares a concern in Saskatoon Based on the symptoms described, Shadick says she “strongly suspects” most of those birds were poisoned.

“The pigeons are convulsing. They’re having seizures,” she said. “One woman contacted me about a dead pigeon in her yard. I think it was in a flower pot and she was concerned because her dog goes out in the yard.” “It’s an animal. It’s a life. And I don’t think it should suffer,” said Shadick. (Guy Quenneville/CBC) Shadick said she believes a particular neurotoxin used to repel birds is to blame. In a public letter to city councillors, she said Saskatoon Light and Power has used that neurotoxin in the past. Brendan Lemke, the acting director of Saskatoon Light and Power, said, “SL&P does not use poison to kill pigeons in or around its substations. “It has, in the past and consistent with best practices, retained the expertise of pest control experts which have used widely accepted chemical repellents for pigeon control, but SL&P has not used those products or services since 2017.” Shadick wants the city to ban use of the product by anyone in the city.

“It’s an animal. It’s a life. And I don’t think it should suffer,” Shadick said Thursday as she grasped a dead pigeon wrapped in a plastic baggie.

Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Environment said it has not granted a permit for the use of the neurotoxin and would only do so “in exceptional circumstances.”

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The Pigeon Poop Station Saga

The Pigeon Poop Station Saga: Bird Pooping On Lawmaker’s Head Seems To Catch Local Leaders’ Attention

HICAGO (CBS) — The CBS 2 Morning Insiders got the scoop on the poop heard ’round the world.

Our video showed a pigeon relieving itself on an Illinois lawmaker as he talked about a problem at the Irving Park Blue Line station. It got international attention, but more importantly, it seems to have caught the eye of leaders locally.

CBS 2’s Lauren Victory met back up with Illinois state Rep. Jaime Andrade (D-Chicago) for this latest report. This time, they shot their interview strategically, given that a pigeon pooped on Andrade’s head as they spoke last time.

RELATED: State Rep. Searches For Funds To Clean Up Irving Park ‘Pigeon Poop Station,’ Gets Pooped On During Interview | ‘It Stinks To High Heaven’: No Solution In Sight For Pigeon Poop Problem At Irving Park Blue Line Stop

Victory: “Did you ever think that a pigeon would get you name recognition?”

Andrade: “Not that much. Not at this level.”

At the Kennedy Expressway underpass at Irving Park Road, where the entrance to the Blue Line station is located, the pigeons’ waste, feathers, and filth create a gross hopscotch game for commuters.

Last time, of course, Andrade couldn’t dodge said pigeons. The pigeon pooping video clip made headlines across the city, the country, and even the ocean.

“Farthest place I’ve heard so far is Spain,” Andrade said.

His feces fame is not for naught. Andrade said he spotted men in yellow vests hard at work after our most recent story aired.

“They said they were out here taking measurements from one of the agencies,” Andrade said. “I’ve been trying to get a real cost, price for over a year. You do the story and they’re out here, measurements just within a few days?”

The Chicago Transit Authority said it sent Landmark Pest Management crews to remove garbage from pigeon netting. As to whether they are working on something long-term, the CTA refused to say.

So Victory decided to learn more about Landmark. Its parent company, ABC Humane Wildlife Control and Prevention, is hired by several departments in Chicago and at the state level.

Landmark President Rebecca Fyffe told Victory that a city contract prevents her from speaking specifically about plans for the Irving Park station. But she pointed CBS 2 to her company’s pigeon abatement work at the Lawrence Red Line station in 2010.

Today, that area is fairly clean by city standards.

CBS 2 is told that Ald. James Cappleman (46th) pushed for the project after several pigeon-related complaints. Cappleman’s spokesman said bird poop was also causing CTA equipment to degrade, so the CTA picked up the bill – to the tune of $150,000. When asked if that figure scared him, Andrade said it did not.

“No, no, I hope it’s that,” he said. But Andrade’s problem is that Irving Park comes with jurisdiction issues. The Blue Line station is CTA property, but other parts of the overpass belong to the Illinois Department of Transportation. “Our constituents don’t care. All they want is the situation solved,” Andrade said. “This story has brought attention all the way to the top, so that I know.”

We’ll wait, and so will the pigeons – who are so comfortable along the overpass that even a train won’t make them flinch.

If you have something you want the Morning Insiders to check out in your neighborhood, email [email protected].

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Revealed: the mechanism that allows birds of a feather to flock together

Revealed: the mechanism that allows birds of a feather to flock together

Pigeons loaded with GPS backpacks show the secrets of co-ordinated flight control

Anyone interested in the democratic process could do worse than study the group decisions made by pigeons in mid-flight. Scientists have discovered that pigeon flocks are governed by a kind of “democratic hierarchy” that makes sure everyone flies in the same direction.

With the help of tiny GPS backpacks carried by each member of a loft of pigeons, researchers have discovered how large numbers of animals are able to instantly co-ordinate their movements to ensure that they do things as a group rather than as anarchic individuals.

Although the principle has so far only been demonstrated with a smallish flock of Hungarian pigeons, the scientists believe it could also operate on much bigger groups of animals, such as schools of fish and herds of wild buffalo, and might even explain how close-knit groups of people, such as juries, manage to reach a single decision.

“Anyone who has seen flocks of birds or schools of fish is familiar with this phenomenon of large numbers of individuals in a fast-moving group appearing to move in a co-ordinated way, and it’s not immediately clear how they coordinate themselves,” said Dora Biro, a zoologist at Oxford University.

“Our question was, how do groups like flocks of pigeons make decisions about what to do and where to go?” Dr Biro said.

The GPS backpacks carried by the pigeons enabled the scientists to precisely monitor the birds’ movements, relative to each other, every 0.2 seconds of their journey from the point where the scientists released them to their home loft in Budapest, 15km away.

“Previously, people had assumed democratic decisions, where every bird’s preferences are somehow averaged out, and that’s what the group ends up doing. Or there might be a single leader or a small number of leaders that everyone follows,” Dr Biro said.

“But what we were able to do by tracking these birds with individual GPS units was to resolve the leader-follower relationship within the flock. What we found was a more sophisticated and refined mechanism for how the decisions are made,” she said.

“There wasn’t a single leader, nor was there a kind of egalitarian decision-making where everyone had an equal vote. Instead, each bird did have a vote, but the weight that each vote carried differed between birds.

“It represented a kind of hierarchy where the decisions of some birds near the top of the hierarchy carried more weight in terms of what the birds did than the birds lower down the hierarchy, who were still influential but to a lesser degree,” said Dr Biro, who carried out the study with Tamás Vicsek of Eötvös University in Budapest.

“Whether such effects come from some individuals being more motivated to lead, or being inherently better navigators perhaps with greater navigational knowledge, is an intriguing question we don’t yet have an answer to,” Dr Biro said.

The loft of pigeons in the study consisted of 10 birds whose every movement was recorded as they flew in a flock from one location to another. The analysis, published in the journal Nature, described how each bird moved in relation to its neighbours, with some individuals leading more than others.

“It’s neither a completely democratic system, where everybody gets the vote, nor [one with] a single leader or a few leaders responsible for the decisions. But in fact every individual gets a kind of input into what the group as a whole should do,” Dr Biro said.

“If this was honed by evolution, if there was a selective advantage for individuals in the group to make decisions in this way, then it might represent a particularly efficient form of group decision making… It is possible that the mechanism we saw in these pigeons generalises to other species and to other group decision-making contexts, even in humans,” Dr Biro said.

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Windsor city issues warning to clean up rooftop swamp

The stagnant rooftop swamp on top of a vacant commercial building on Ouellette Avenue continues to fester, attracting wildlife and emitting a wicked stench that has frustrated neighbours who’ve put up with the growing mess for months.

A pond of water pooled on the roof of the empty property at 747-755 Ouellette Ave. long enough for a large patch of reeds and cattails to flourish, providing an attractive destination for the pigeons and seagulls that arrive almost every morning.

Malette says nothing has been done since she highlighted the issue. But help may be on the way, according to Lee Ann Doyle, the city’s chief building official. Inspectors have visited the site several times and issued a final warning to the owner to clean up the property.

“If the work isn’t done, we’ll do it and charge it against the property taxes,” Doyle said.

Building inspectors issued a work order after visiting the site in July. When nothing was done, the city sent out the warning letter on Aug. 11, giving the owner until Sept. 10 to clean up the mess.

Doyle said, if nothing is done, the city will call in contractors on Sept. 11 to do the work.

The building is listed to Entertaining Assests Inc., but company representative Mike Soleski previously told The Windsor Star he hasn’t owned the property for several months. All records on file with the city indicate there has been no change in ownership.

Malette barely goes out onto her 13th floor balcony anymore because of the smell and the mosquitoes.

“I’m not a person to make complaints, but this is just ridiculous,” she said.

Discarded patio chairs, empty pizza boxes and beer cans demonstrate the amount of human traffic on the rooftop as well. The commercial building has been boarded up for years, but at least 10 times, Malette said, she has watched people on the roof, smoking drugs and drinking. They’ve even gone as far as setting small fires.

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Mum fined £150 for feeding sausage roll to pigeon

Woman fined Â£150 by Bath officer for feeding pigeon sausage roll

Elisa Menendez – Wednesday 19 Jun 2019 9:56 PM

A woman has been fined £150 by her local council for feeding a piece of sausage roll to a pigeon. Sally-Ann Fricker fed the bird while shopping with her three children in Bath.

Her daughter, Toni Bradley, said they were approached ‘seconds later’ by an officer for littering, despite the pigeon flying away with the food.

Toni said: ‘If she’d chucked the wrapper down then that would have been fair enough, but this was absolutely ridiculous, we were very upset and very shocked.’

According to Bath and North East Somerset Council, those caught littering face a £150 fine, reduced to £100 if paid within 14 days.

Councillor Dave Wood, cabinet member for climate change and the environment, said the authority would review whether the fine was appropriate in this incident.

However, he added that there are notices on many streets asking the public not to feed pigeons as they are a ‘public nuisance’.

Daughter Toni was outraged at the fine, adding that her mum is a carer and the fine was worth more than her weekly earnings.

She said: ‘When I got home my three-year-old asked me to take down the bird feeder from the garden “because nanny got into trouble” for feeding them.’

Wood added that councils and their contractors should use ‘common sense’ with situations like Sally-Ann’s.

‘I have asked officers to urgently look into this matter and review the action taken with the contractor, to determine whether it was proportionate,’ he said.

He added: ‘As a general point, pigeons and gulls cause a public nuisance and are part of the problem the council has to manage when dealing with litter on the streets. ‘There are notices all over the city asking people not to feed birds.’

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/19/mum-fined-150-feeding-sausage-roll-pigeon-10016074

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Rescuers Looking For Owner Of Mysterious Bedazzled Pigeon

Blinged out Bird!

A lot of us look at pigeons less than fondly – but clearly not all of us. A bird shelter in Arizona, USA, is looking for the owner of a pigeon found wearing a rhinestone-covered vest. The bird, now nicknamed ‘rhinestone bird’ and ‘Liberace’, was given to the Fallen Feathers rescue and rehabilitation facility for birds in Phoenix.

According to local reports, the pigeon was found by a woman in Glendale, wearing a blingy flight suit.

The woman said he wouldn’t fly away and she was afraid an animal would eat him, so she turned in the bedazzled bird to Judy Kieran – the founder of Fallen Feathers.

The bedazzled bird received instant online fame once Judy shared his picture on Facebook a week ago, in hopes of tracing his owner. Comments quickly flooded in, ranging from ‘fabulous’ to ‘fancy’ to ‘rhinestone birdy’.

“Looks like it’s maybe El Chapo’s pigeon with that fancy gold encrusted vest,” wrote one person in the comments section. “You have to name him Elvis!!!” joked another.

In fact, the lost bird received so much attention that Judy shared some better pictures later.

(We must say he’s a fabulous bird)

“Apparently he did belong to somebody, because he does keep going to cages and being as friendly as he is, he’s missing his home,” said Judy.

The search is still underway for Rhinestone Pigeon aka Liberace’s owner.

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Indonesian pigeon sells for $100,000 amid national racing boom

Jayabaya

A pigeon named Jayabaya has become the most expensive bird ever sold in Indonesia. A racing pigeon in Indonesia has been sold for 1 billion rupiah ($101,700), breaking the national record for the most expensive bird ever sold in the country.

The male pigeon, named Jayabaya, was bought by Robby Eka Wijaya in the town of Cilodong in West Java to compete in Indonesia’s booming pigeon races.

Mr Wijaya bought the pigeon from his colleague after watching it compete in a number of different competitions.

He told the ABC he made an offer the owner could not refuse because the pigeon had “special features”, including a rare consistency and “stable mood”.

“One race can last over two days and nine rounds. Often birds can only perform for four rounds, but this bird is able to get into the top 20 at every competition,” he said.

Jayabaya competed against thousands of birds from across the country last year and received the highest score in the national competition, according to Mr Wijaya.

Pigeon racing is a traditional sport in Indonesia, mainly from the island of Java, but it has rapidly gained popularity ever since the creation of a national pigeon organisation.

Robby Eka Wijaya holds a sign of the pigeon he had just purchased named Jayabaya. The type of competition varies and includes speed racing, freestyle flying, as well as a table category, where the pigeons are expected to land back on a table at a certain time after flying.

In order to get Jayabaya to return during a competition, its owner calls out for him with his “girlfriend”, a female pigeon which shares the same cage as him, which Mr Wijaya says is a common practice.

“From what I’ve observed in the past 10 years, there are only two or three birds that are like him,” he said, adding that his friends has questioned his sanity over the amount he paid.

The popularity of pigeon racing in Indonesia has been partly attributed to high profit margins. Pigeons cost around 20,000 rupiah ($2) and the winnings can range from $7,500 to $10,000, or even a brand new car.

The registration cost to compete is also relatively low at a mere $13 to $16, according to the organisation of High Pigeon Fans Indonesia (PMTI).

However, Indonesian newspaper Kompas reports that the average participant pigeon racing competitions are anywhere between 1,500 to 2,000 people, making reaching the top 20 a feat in itself.

Mr Wijaya said it would be “easy” to be able to generate profit off Jayabaya, who is estimated to be two to three years old.

“There is already someone who is willing to spend 100 million rupiah ($10,200) for a set of eggs he fathers, but I won’t sell it,” he said.

In March this year, a Chinese buyer bought a racing pigeon for 1.252 million Euros ($1.98 million) during a pigeon auction by a Belgian breeder, the most expensive pigeon of all time.

The pigeon, named Armando, was described as the Lewis Hamilton of racing pigeons and holds a variety of records including best one day long distance pigeon in Belgium.

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Overpopulation has Wisconsin town putting pigeons on the pill

Business owners in La Crosse are putting pigeons on birth control – sort of.

Feeding stations atop downtown buildings include a contraceptive feed. It’s aimed at lowering reproduction in the birds that leave droppings on sidewalks, awnings and park benches.

Wayne Oliver, a member of the Downtown Mainstreet Board, tells WXOW that it’s the most successful idea the board has tried.

Maria Norberg, owner of a downtown coffee shop and food truck, says she supports anything that can cut down on the overhead threat to her customers.

Funding comes from a city beautification grant.

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Let’s stick with pigeons for a moment.

Occasionally, you see them munching on a pizza rind or some other recognizable discarded food, but most of the time they seem to be pecking at nothing at all.

I am not planning to start a pigeon Facebook enterprise, but unlike virtually all New Yorkers, I do not loathe pigeons and give them credit for living a tough life on the mean and unforgiving streets of Manhattan.

And if you actually stop and look at them, which no one does, their plumage can be quite striking. Yes they are plump and the neck-snapping walk is mind-boggling — what evolutionary rationale could that possibly have? — but they demonstrate an unrelenting pluck to survive in the city that I find admirable.

Just like seagulls, you never see a young or old pigeon, and never a sickly one. They are all the same size and seem in excellent health. I’ve never seen a dead pigeon or a squished one, which is remarkable for all their bicycle- and car-dodging. Not to overthink this, for all of their daily vicissitudes they seem pretty content with their lives, although their expressionless faces could be masking all kinds of nameless dreads.

One activity that seems to definitely give them great pleasure is communal flight. As I look east from our 16th floor apartment, I often see sizable flocks of pigeons soaring in synchronized movements that have no purpose, just banking, turning this way and that, diving and climbing.

They are clearly playing. They will, as a group, alight on a random rooftop, cogitate for a while and then set off on another flight maneuver, happy as clams.

If there is an afterlife, this playful flying would not make me elect to come back as a pigeon. I’m on record as choosing to come back as a chickadee. But if I have no choice and I’m forced to come back as a pigeon, I could handle it. The key, it seems, is a sufficient stream of pizza rinds.

Seagulls seem a lot like pigeons. They are always scamming for food and can fly beautifully. They seem smarter than pigeons and have a more sculpted shape. Gratefully, they have eliminated the disturbing neck-snapping walk, and they are artful at catching food thrown at them by the bored human denizens of Crescent Beach.

Which brings me to a seagull story. It is a third-hand story and its veracity cannot be verified. It was told to me by my nephew on Cape Cod, and he is a known embellisher. There is a thin line between embellishment and prevarication, and I am pretty sure he was sticking to the embellishment side. Not betting my life on that, however.

It starts with a surf-casting fisherman and a nearby observing seagull. The seagull watches as the surf-caster baits up his hook and heaves it into the waves. This is repeated several times with no success, fish-catching-wise. This is where it gets interesting.

This story wants you to believe that a light goes on in the observing seagull’s brain. The light says one, there is food being flung into the air and two, I can fly. Ergo, an intercept is entirely possible. But the light does not fully grasp the concept of “fish hook.”

You probably see where this is going. A perfectly timed intercept is made and the hook lodges in the seagull’s beak, surprising both human and bird actors in this story.

Embellishment alert: The fisherman starts reeling in the seagull and eventually gets it on the beach where a concerned woman assists the fisherman to calm the seagull while he fetches his needle-nose pliers to extract the hook. The seagull is not pleased, and it takes a while to wrestle the hook out.

A moment passes as the humans and seagull digest what just happened. Another light goes on in the seagull’s brain. With good intentions, the concerned woman is carefully holding the seagull but gets no credit for this act of kindness. The light says take a nip of the woman’s cheek and get the heck out of here. End of story.

True story? We cannot be sure.

But it sure beats any pigeon story I know.

Someone discarded 145 living pigeons this winter

WOLCOTT — Someone discarded 145 living pigeons this winter the way one throws out an empty disposable coffee cup — by tossing them into a trash dumpster.

The night caretaker at the northbound Interstate 65 rest area in White County found the first 57 birds in the middle of December as he took the trash out, said Kim Hoover of the Hoots to Howls Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in rural Pulaski County. Some of the birds trapped inside boxes died, she said.

She took the birds and found homes for most of them, keeping the blind and crippled birds at the rehabilitation center.

Then on Feb. 28, the caretaker found more boxes of birds in the same dumpster at the same rest area.

“Same mozzarella cheese boxes. Same person’s name and number on the leg ban,” she said.

The first group of birds found were standing in feces that were caked to their feet and matted in their feathers, Hoover said. It appeared they’d been in the dumpster for a while and were in poor health.

The second group was found in better condition and did not have trash piled on top of the boxes, indicating that they had not been in the dumpster that long, Hoover said.

That person’s name on the leg band is Bahman Ghassab from Dublin, Ohio, Hoover said. The bands also had a telephone number to reach Ghassab. The Journal & Courier called that number on Wednesday, but it is no longer a working number.

But after the find in December, Hoover said one of her associates did call the number, and Ghassab answered.

“He said he sold some birds to someone in Florida and in Illinois,” Hoover said, “and he would not give any more info than that.

“When asked why would you sell sick starving and injured pigeons and better yet why would someone buy them in this condition, the conversation ended,” Hoover said.

The Journal & Courier contacted John DeCarlo Jr., president of the National Pigeon Association. He checked the association’s membership list, and Ghassab is not a member.

“These birds don’t fly,” Hoover said.

The Journal & Courier texted photos of the birds to DeCarlo, who is in California.

“I don’t know why they don’t fly,” he said, noting this particular breed of pigeon is the Iranian high fliers.

The Iranian high fliers are capable of flight, unlike the one particular breed that Hoover mistakenly was told the rescued birds belonged to, DeCarlo said.

The birds might not fly because they are sick or are under fed or are under conditioned, DeCarlo said. Or they might have been altered so they can’t fly, he added.

Someone told Hoover the birds were likely part of an illegal gambling ring, but that doesn’t seem likely, according to DeCarlo.

The only gambling in the pigeon hobby is among racing pigeons, and these are not racing pigeons, he said.

The flightless pigeon breed is known as parlor rollers. They have been genetically bred not to fly, and when they are nervous or excited, they roll, Decarlo said. There is a competition among parlor rollers to see whose bird can roll the furthest, but it’s not cruel because this is the natural way these birds behave, according to several pigeon experts interviewed Wednesday by the Journal & Courier.

Everyone interviewed Wednesday was incensed by the way these birds were discarded.

Hoover said no one seems interested in investigating it as a criminal case.

“From what I’m told, they’re not pets; they’re not farm animals, so nobody does anything,” she said.

National Pigeon Association Secretary/Treasurer Tim Heidrich of Georgia doesn’t see why it couldn’t be prosecuted.

“To me, it’s like animal cruelty,” Heidrich said. “There are ways to get rid of them without being cruel about it.”

“There are quite a few small shows,” he said. “You can go to these things and sell them — give them away to the kids.”

DeCarlo suggested giving unwanted pigeons to 4Hers so they can learn the hobby and show them.

Finding so many birds thrown away begs the question of whether other birds met with a similar fate only went undiscovered at other locations.

“We don’t know if this is the first time,” Hoover said. “Is it happening at other rest parks? We don’t know.

“I just wish he’d stop. These birds don’t deserve to be thrown out.”