Canadian woman battling crippling disease caused by pigeon poop

Canadian woman battling crippling disease caused by pigeon poop

people covered in bird droppings

Canadian woman battling crippling disease caused by pigeon poop

PETER POWER – THE GLOBE AND MAIL

In the span of a few weeks, Erica Richards has been transformed from a vibrant 23-year-old woman who loved nature to a person battling for her life.

In early January, the Fredericton woman contracted a potentially fatal condition called cryptococcal meningitis, a fungal disease carried in the feces of pigeons.

The debilitating illness attacks the spine and brain, causing severe swelling. It left her confined to a hospital bed in a state of delirium for weeks.

But the most devastating side effect is that Ms. Richards is now blind.

“Be aware of this disease. It could kill a child in a heartbeat,” Ms. Richards said in an interview from her hospital bed.

“It could kill a senior in a heartbeat without you even having to worry about the symptoms. It comes on that fast. If you don’t realize the symptoms, it could kill you, too.”

Her emotional warning comes on the heels of city council’s approval earlier this month of a recommendation that it toughen its animal control bylaw to allow for fines for feeding pigeons. Once the amendment is drafted and declared law, it will give the city’s bylaw enforcement officers the power to ticket and fine offenders.

Ms. Richards said she decided to go public about her illness after learning about a recent newspaper story about a problem with pigeon poop in the city.

“Please don’t feed the pigeons,” she said. “Try to shoo them away if you see them. … It (the disease) is horrible. The pain that you get from this disease is crippling.

“The after-effects are with you for life and you just can’t stop thinking about it. I just want other people to know and try to stay away from pigeons.”

Oddly enough, Ms. Richards said she has no recollection of ever being anywhere near pigeons.

“I am still wondering to this day where I got it,” she said. “I could have stepped in it and brought it into the home. I just don’t know.”

Ms. Richards said the symptoms started with a migraine headache that wouldn’t go away. She was admitted to hospital on Feb. 10 after many days of intense head pain. Shortly after, she went into a coma-like state.

“When I woke up I thought I had a mask over my eyes, but I was wrong. I was blind. I was recently told that I will be blind for the rest of my life. This is a tough thing for a 23-year-old to go through. … My world crumbled around me.”

Ms. Richards said the odds of surviving the disease are 50-50.

“However, I managed to make it through,” she said, battling tears. “I don’t know how but I am still here, and I am glad because I get to warn everyone else of this.”

Cristin Muecke, the Health Department’s regional medical officer, confirmed the disease is often associated with pigeon droppings. She said the illness can’t be spread person to person and is more common with someone who has immune problems.

Ms. Richards, however, said she has never had a problem with her immune system and that’s what’s so puzzling about contracting the affliction.

“I do not want anyone else to suffer this agonizing disease and I ask anyone who is feeding pigeons to stop,” she said. “It’s not just a matter of keeping your neighbourhood clean … it’s a matter of keeping people healthy.”

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.

Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca

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The New Pigeon Wars

The New Pigeon Wars

man feeds pigeons in times square

The new pigeon wars

By Sheila McClear – NY POST

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 between the two sides boiled over again.

It 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 landmarked Italian Renaissance building’s façade. 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 between pigeons and people 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.”

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.

Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca

Dozens of ‘decorated’ pigeons found dead in New Zealand

Dozens of ‘decorated’ pigeons found dead in New Zealand

Pigeon covered in tinsel is investigated

Pigeons and other birds have been found around the New Zealand capital of Wellington with Christmas decorations attached.

 

Originally By Lisa Jane Harding, CNN

(CNN) Injured and dead pigeons covered in tinsel and other decorations have been turning up in New Zealand, and animal rights campaigners are worried.

The Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) said it received up to 30 calls in recent weeks reporting sightings of sparrows and dead pigeons with tinsel intentionally tied to their bodies.
“Many try to pry the foreign objects off their bodies with their beaks and feet, becoming further entangled and preventing them from eating, drinking and flying.
With others, the decorations are wrapped so tightly it completely cuts off their blood circulation,” SPCA spokeswoman Jessie Gilchrist told CNN.
“Those that do survive and arrive at our center are often in a very bad state, they are so malnourished and distressed that we have had to humanely euthanize them.”

The decorations can prevent the birds from eating, drinking and flying, leaving them to starve to death.

Since 2015, the charity said there has been over thirty cases of “decorated” birds found dead or with injuries severe enough to require euthanasia. Most of them being dead pigeons.
On Tuesday, SPCA officers were called to a house in Kilbirnie, a suburb of the capital Wellington, where they rescued several birds covered in decorations and paint.
The birds were in a distressed but otherwise healthy condition.
“One pigeon had quite bright red Christmas tinsel wrapped around its wings and then the top of its head had been painted with red paint as well as its wings had been tipped with red paint,” Gilchrist said.
While charges have yet to be laid against the owners of the house, Gilchrist said the case “remains an ongoing investigation.”
Sparrows and pigeons — which forage for food on the ground, in shrubs or shallow water — face a number of threats from predators, including foxes and racoons, as well as larger birds and snakes.
But humans are perhaps the biggest threat to the birds. In 2015, New Zealand recognized all animals, including birds, as “sentient” under law, extending protections and making it easier for charities like the SPCA to prosecute people for animal cruelty.
One stated purpose of the law was to “remove uncertainty around the ill-treatment of wild animals by targeting acts of wilful or reckless ill-treatment.”

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.

Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca

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Pigeons to be banished for threatening tourists in Spanish town of Cadiz

Pigeons to be banished for threatening tourists in Spanish town of Cadiz

Cadiz Cathedral in Spain is facing a pigeon infestation.

Cadiz Cathedral in Spain is facing a pigeon infestation.

Laura Perez Maestro, CNN • Updated 13th December 2018

(CNN) — It’s always nice to share a meal with the locals on vacation, except when the locals steal your food, smash your plate, defecate on the table — and then fly away. Cadiz has been facing this exact pigeon problem.
That’s the situation in the southwestern Spanish port town of Cádiz where pigeons have been terrorizing tourists to such an extent that local authorities are now taking steps to banish thousands of birds.
“We are not exaggerating, the pigeons are not scared of humans any more,” Carlos Fernández, the manager of one of the restaurants in Cádiz’s beautiful Cathedral Square, tells CNN.
“They throw themselves at the food even when there are clients seating ready to eat it. They push glasses, plates and jars on to the floor and it’s a real mess.”
And when tourists give up on Cádiz’s sunny terraces and move inside, there’s still no escape from the birds, Fernández says.
“Even inside the restaurant, they come in, they know where the food is and that we don’t do anything to them, they are not scared”, adds Fernández.
Brazen Pigeons feed off a table eating leftovers

Brazen Pigeons feeding directly from the table.

He says that the population of pigeons is now so high that customers pestered by the pigeons are being scarred by their experiences. “They don’t come back.”
It’s not a pretty picture either. The square’s winged residents “decorate” building facades and restaurant tables and chairs. They even make the ground difficult to walk on, says Fernández.
After a pigeon census by the city council decreed that the bird population of 9,000 was three times as many as Cádiz could sustain, authorities decided to take steps.
The plan is to catch and relocate 5,000 pigeons over a period of a year instead of culling them. They’ll then be transported at least 170 miles away — a distance hoped to discourage them from returning.
Alvaro de la Fuente, of the council’s environmental department, says the city wants “a respectful and sustainable solution to reduce the impact of the birds on cities like Cádiz.”
He adds that by relocating rather than exterminating the birds, Cádiz hopes to “establish a logical equilibrium where the cohabitation between humans and birds doesn’t damage either.”
The local government is confident this project will work because, although pigeons have strong homing instincts, once you take them beyond 170 miles from their home they tend to stay and settle in their new surroundings.
Some 3,000 leaflets instructing people to stop feeding the birds are also being distributed to make the change a little bit easier.close up of pigeon

Health risks

Cádiz’s hoteliers, who say they’ve lost 20% of their business because of the pigeons and warned of health risks to their employees, welcome the relocation plan but want it implemented ASAP.
“It’s been years since we brought up the problem and started talking with the city hall,” says Antonio de María, president of Cádiz hoteliers association, Horeca.
“A few months ago, we were presented with a plan to move the pigeons to another city but they now say they need a health assessment on the pigeons that will be moved, so the project keeps getting delayed.”
Cádiz is not the only city with bird problems. In November, Rome’s authorities began using falcons to drive thousands of starlings out of the ancient city.

 

Pigeon droppings equate to 230 parked cars on bridge.

Pigeon droppings equate to 230 parked cars on bridge.

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Crews tasked with cleaning a Saskatchewan bridge are in for a dirty job.

The City of Saskatoon said that over the last 50 years one of its bridges has accumulated nearly 350 tonnes of pigeon poop – which is roughly equal to 230 cars parked on the bridge.

It said the feces adds unnecessary weight and the pigeon droppings contain uric acid which can damage concrete, affecting the integrity of the bridge.

This also means the extermination of about 1,500 members of the feathered flock that makes the Sid Buckwold Bridge home.

The city said relocating or displacing the birds is not recommended because they are likely to fly back or move into other private properties or civic spaces. Homing pigeons are likely to return to their original roosting areas, making relocation difficult as a long term solution.

A local wildlife advocate is disappointed and questions why alternatives can’t be found that would allow the birds to live. “In Saskatchewan, a very, very, very common response is if it pisses you off, shoot it,” said Jan Shadick, volunteer director of Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation.

Regina and Vancouver rely on pigeon spikes, protective netting or cages to keep pigeons off their facilities. Toronto and Calgary do not practice Pigeon control.

Here at Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture, sell, and install humane bird exclusion products, such as bird spikes and netting.

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