In 2019, not long before the unusual weather event that changed day into night in São Paulo City (Brazil), dozens of pigeons mysteriously dropped dead. Birds displaying wounds as well as neurological symptoms were found dead or dying near the municipal animal disease control center.
A multicenter research team discovered that the deaths were unrelated to the pollution blown into the city from forest fires in the Amazon, despite the proximity of the dates, but were in fact due to Newcastle disease virus (NDV), a serotype 1 avian paramyxovirus. The cases in question were caused by subgenotype VI.2.1.2, which is almost always deadly for pigeons. Also known as pigeon paramyxovirus (PPMV), this pathogen only rarely infects humans when transmitted by close contact with infected birds.
“We discovered that this virus has been circulating silently in Brazil since 2014. Our analysis of molecular data showed that it’s the same PPMV that had been identified five years before in Porto Alegre [the capital of Rio Grande do Sul state]. São Paulo and Porto Alegre are 1,100 km apart, which only goes to show how much the disease can spread without being noticed,” said Luciano Matsumiya Thomazelli, first author of an article on the team’s findings published in the journal Viruses. Thomazelli is affiliated with the University of São Paulo’s Biomedical Sciences Institute (ICB-USP), where he works at the Clinical and Molecular Virology Laboratory.
Since 2005, a team from the laboratory has conducted epidemiological surveillance in various parts of Brazil, under the aegis of the Virus Genetic Diversity Network (VGDN), which is funded by FAPESP and coordinated by Professor Edison Luiz Durigon, last author of the article.
The group also works with the Network for Surveillance of Viruses in Wild Animals (PREVIR), funded by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), an arm of the Brazilian government’s Ministry for Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI).
Deadly to pigeons
NDV normally causes disease in hens and chickens but not in pigeons. According to the researchers, however, the opposite occurs with subgenotype VI.2.1.2.
“It’s endemic in pigeon populations worldwide, causing neurological symptoms and high mortality rates. Cases are frequently reported in Asia, Europe and North America. Although this is the second reported outbreak in Brazil, there are no grounds for alarm because this subgenotype isn’t a significant threat to humans or poultry farmers,” said Helena Ferreira, a professor at the School of Animal Sciences and Food Engineering in Pirassununga (FZEA-USP), a member of PREVIR-MCTI, and principal investigator for the study.
The researchers stressed the importance of active surveillance and monitoring to control outbreaks and epidemics, and to provide early warning of the emergence of new diseases.
“Active surveillance throughout Brazil is vital to control pigeon populations near poultry farms and in urban areas,” Thomazelli said. “Monitoring of NDV is also important from the economic standpoint, as Brazil is the world’s leading exporter of frozen chicken.”
Before the researchers could identify the disease that was killing feral pigeons (Columba livia) in São Paulo, the animal disease control center and official veterinary service collected and organized several specimens of dead birds.
“Initially the cause of death was thought to be a bacterium, but no pathogenic species were identified,” Ferreira said. “They sent samples to ICB-USP and the Federal Agricultural Defense Laboratory [LFDA-SP], where characterization was performed, in line with the standard procedure for notifiable viral diseases affecting poultry. Our lab in Pirassununga then sequenced the viral genome.”
Her team also performed analyses to identify tissue wounds. “We sequenced the whole genome and identified the virus as VI.2.1.2,” she said. “This enables us to conduct an in-depth investigation, compare the outbreak with others elsewhere in the world, track the pathogen’s evolution in Brazil, and predict its behavior from now on, including whether it may adapt to other feral birds, for example.”
The genomic analysis showed that the virus found in São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul (in 2014) can be grouped with samples from Africa.
“Other cases need to be identified so that we can propose classification of the genotype that has circulated in Brazil. It’s relatively different from the African one,” she said. “This kind of monitoring is most important. In the specific case in question, the genotype can’t infect domestic birds [hens] efficiently. If a hen is infected, it doesn’t transmit the virus to others in the same flock. However, studies have suggested that this genotype can adapt in hens over time and cause disease in other domestic birds. Even so, it isn’t considered very dangerous for commercial poultry.”
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
Why do species die out? This is the overarching question being asked by many leading researchers. Knowing more about what leads to a species’ becoming extinct could enable us to do something about it. The passenger pigeon is a famous example and the species has been studied extensively.
The passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) was once found in huge numbers in North America. Records tell of passing flocks that darkened the skies for several days at a time. The species may have peaked at five billion individuals. A more conservative estimate is three billion.
Within a short time, the species disappeared completely.
“Given the huge size of the population, it’s simply amazing that the species disappeared so quickly,” says Tom Gilbert.
Gilbert is a professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Centre for GeoGenetics, but he also has a part-time position as an adjunct professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
The human role
The history of the passenger pigeon is interesting, partly because it can tell us something about how and why species become extinct.
Native Americans also relied on passenger pigeons for food. But at least in parts of the passenger pigeons’ range, people had learned to harvest the species at a sustainable level that didn’t threaten to eradicate it.
It was common in some parts of North America to only eat young pigeons that were hunted at night, since this did not seem to scare away the adult birds or prevent them from re-nesting.
But starting around 1500, a more aggressive variant of humans came to the continent with the arrival of Europeans. The hunt for passenger pigeons grew and culminated in a massive hunt for the species throughout the 1800s, before the species finally collapsed and disappeared.
So were the Europeans then really the ones to blame for the collapse?
Already headed to oblivion?
In 2014, a study in published in the scientific journal PNAS strongly suggested that humans were simply the final straw in destroying a species that was already vulnerable and headed to oblivion.
The researchers asserted that despite their enormous numbers, the passenger pigeons were already in trouble. The population of the species varied greatly, similar to lemmings, but over a longer period of time.
When the Europeans arrived, the species was already in a strong decline. The population was plummeting long before Europeans arrived, and perhaps Europeans even contributed to a short-term increase in numbers.
Studies of the genetic variation of the species using an investigative method called PSMC formed the background for these assertions. And now we have to concentrate a bit.
From one to many
All of an individual’s genes are called a genome. You have a genome, your mom has her own genome, your dog has one and the neighbour’s cat has yet another. These can be broken down into chromosomes and genes and base pairs, but you only have a single genome.
So, all of your chromosomes and genes are found in this one genome, but at the same time this genome is unique to just you and only you. Unless, that is, you have an identical twin or are a termite or belong to another species where the individuals are largely identical clones. (In the last case, it’s remarkable that you can read this.)
Here is the crux of the matter:
The PSMC method can use the information in the genes of a single individual of a species to map the history of the species.
You should therefore be able to see how the species developed over many generations, and estimate how many individuals there were at any given time, all based on a single genome.
Humans partially off the hook
Using this method, researchers found that the number of passenger pigeons was in free fall even before the arrival of the Europeans.
Although the species might not have become extinct, it would have shrunk significantly in any case, maybe to only a few hundred thousand individuals.
People were just the final factor in their demise. We may have pushed the passenger pigeons off the cliff, but the species was already on its way there.
So — according to the researchers behind the study in PNAS — it wasn’t just the Europeans’ fault.
It sounds almost too good to be true that you can come up with something so definitive based on information from just one or a few individuals. And in this case it is — at least if we’re to believe a new study that has recently been published in the journal Science.
Ineffective for passenger pigeons
The problem is that the PSMC method can’t be used on passenger pigeons. The new research in Science provides completely different results.
Leading molecular biologist Beth Shapiro is the main author of the Science article, and Tom Gilbert is one of the study’s contributors.
PSMC is based on the assumption that genetic variations occur relatively evenly all along the chromosomes that constitute the genome. That is, genetic changes are equally likely to occur at the ends of a chromosome as in the middle. But this turns out not to be the case for this species.
“Passenger pigeons don’t have the variation patterns that we’d expect, because of the strong selection on genes that appear to have been important throughout the species’ history. So it doesn’t work to use PSMC in this case,” said Gilbert.
In passenger pigeons, most of the genetic diversity was found at the ends of the chromosome. The middle of the chromosome showed little variation from one generation to the next as a result of the selection on these genes.
This fact may not sound revolutionary, but it yields completely different results if you try to read the history of the species based on the genome of a single individual.
You have to take into account that variations are greatest in certain parts of the chromosome rather than evenly distributed throughout. This makes the PSMC method unusable in this context.
Used another method
The researchers behind the article in Science didn’t use the PSMC method. Instead, they used mitochondrial DNA from 41 passenger pigeons as their starting point. Now we have to concentrate again.
Your DNA is not your only inheritance. Mitochondrial DNA is a distinct, separate inheritance found in certain cells called mitochondria.
Regular DNA is a combination of the inheritance from your father and mother. But mitochondrial DNA is only transmitted from your mother. Variations in mitochondrial DNA also occur due to mutations, and happen relatively consistently over time.
This is a different point of departure for understanding how a species develops over time, and the results can be quite different from those generated using the PSMC method.
In addition, the study presented in Science analysed the entire genomes from four passenger pigeons and compared them with two genomes from band-tailed pigeons (Patagioenas fasciata), one of the closest relatives of the passenger pigeon.
The final result was that the new study ended up with completely different answers about the passenger pigeons and why the species met its demise.
Genetic diversity
The new study is interesting for several reasons. It tells us about the genetic diversity of the passenger pigeon, but also supports an entirely different explanation for the species’ extinction.
Scientists previously believed that the larger the population of a species is, the more genetically diverse it will be. But this theory has turned out to be wrong, as the recent passenger pigeon research has shown.
According to the article in Science, the large population size appears to have enabled passenger pigeons to adapt and evolve more quickly and thus remove harmful mutations.
In species with fewer individuals, chance can cause a less beneficial mutation to persist, but chance plays less of a role in species with greater numbers of individuals.
“Mutations that provide a major evolutionary benefit would spread rapidly,” says Gilbert.
The fact that beneficial mutations became incredibly dominant so quickly simply led to the disappearance of other genetic variants.
This in turn led to the genetic diversity in the passenger pigeon being surprisingly low in relation to the number of individuals. This may have made the species more vulnerable to changes.
But that was not why the passenger pigeon died out.
Our mistake
“The passenger pigeon died out because of people,” is Gilbert’s short version.
The passenger pigeon wasn’t in trouble prior to Europeans arrival in North America. Nothing suggests that the species was struggling in any way.
Perhaps this isn’t that surprising. In the 19th century passenger pigeons were so numerous that there were contests to shoot as many of them as possible during a certain period of time. In one competition, the winner had shot 30 000 birds.
If nothing else, the story of the passenger pigeon has contributed to a greater understanding that even prolific species can become extinct.
Something to learn
The large grasshopper Melanoplus spretus from the western United States suffered the same fate. It went from a population of several trillion to zero in a few decades, possibly because farmers destroyed its breeding grounds. In Norway and across the whole of the North Atlantic, the great auk (Pinguinus impennis) died out after people harvested them in large numbers.
People ate passenger pigeons in huge amounts, but they were also killed because they were perceived as a threat to agriculture. As Europeans migrated across North America, they thinned out and eliminated the large forests that the pigeons depended on. The pigeons lived primarily on acorns.
As the species was already dying out, 250,000 birds — the last big flock — were shot on a single day in 1896. That same year, the last passenger pigeon was observed in Louisiana. It was also shot.
The pigeons were probably dependent on a large flock size to reproduce. Their instincts didn’t work when only a few individuals remained here and there.
The last passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
The politicians are seated in a semi-circle at a meeting of the council. One by one, they raise their voices as part of the deliberation. “I believe it is time we took a position on this,” says a black-blazered woman. “It’s not an industry that I want to support,” a second woman, wearing dark-rimmed glasses, reads into the official record.
“It’s time,” concludes the mayor, donning the heavy chain that is the insignia of his office, “to end the practice in our community.”
It is a fall meeting of the District of North Vancouver’s city council and they are discussing whether people should be allowed to keep pigeons. Councillors Lisa Muri, in the blazer, and Megan Curren, with the glasses, ultimately vote with the mayor in favour of an outright pigeon ban.
Coun. Matthew Bond, one of those who votes against, says skeptically, “I don’t necessarily see this as a good use of our time.” But the bylaw passes, four to two.
Something smells, though. Only one property in the community is known to harbour pet pigeons. Only one complaint about pigeons, dating back several years, is known to be active. Only one city councillor has recused herself from the discussion. “I have been in a situation like this,” Coun. Betty Forbes says, at the same meeting. “So I’m stepping aside.”
One plus one plus one equals . . . a conflict of interest?
Documents obtained by the CBC under access-to-information seem to bolster that view of events. The “situation” was that Forbes lived next-door to pigeons. That she did not like pigeons. And that after complaining to the city as a private citizen to no avail, she took matters into her own hands; after being elected to council in 2018, in an email to two fellow councillors, she requested a bylaw banning residents from keeping the birds.
Emails viewed by Maclean’s suggest that during the spring, Muri initiated a process to change the district’s pigeon ownership rules, and kept Forbes up to date on its progress. But the whole project has since run into trouble because it turns out Kulwant Dulay, Forbes’ neighbour, cares deeply about his pigeons. He cares enough to go to court.
His petition to B.C. Supreme Court, dated Dec. 4, seeks to have the bylaw declared illegal and set aside. It relies heavily on the CBC’s reporting, referencing emails between Forbes and Muri earlier this year that appear to reveal a plot to hatch the bylaw.
Dulay is arguing that Forbes’s involvement was “biased and bad faith and acting in a conflict of interest,” says Camille Chisholm, a lawyer representing the pigeon enthusiast. The district has retained its own lawyers and was expected to respond in January.
The same week as Dulay’s petition was filed, the District of North Vancouver announced it was tasking former B.C. privacy commissioner David Loukidelis with investigating how the pigeon ban came to be. His review, the district announced, will assess the “awareness” of conflict-of-interest rules by councillors. The process is expected to take a couple of months.
Dulay, Chisholm adds, has kept homing pigeons as pets for years—including during his time in India before he immigrated to Canada. “My neighbours in the front and back, everybody loves my pigeons,” says Dulay, adding that other than Forbes’s, he hasn’t had a complaint in 17 years. “Everybody comes to my house and looks at them. It looks cool, them flying around.” Some have names. One is called “Big Boss.” His favourite pigeon is blue and white. He said it always comes to his hand.
Dulay keeps his 15 birds in a coop that’s about as tall as the backyard fence and roomy enough for him to enter and move around. During the warmer months, he lets them out to fly around the neighbourhood, including over other people’s yards. He said they always return.
Lately, he has wondered whether Forbes has a problem with him, not his pigeons. He said she “never talks” to him, and notes that he has never complained about her two barking dogs, though he believes he might have reason to.
His across-the-street neighbour, meanwhile, has spoken in his support. “I’ve had opportunity to go over and see the coop,” Krista Page told council on Nov. 18. ”It is clean. There’s no foul smell. I’ve never met neighbours that keep a tidier driveway and home and everything.” Page noted there have been no complaints from the Dulays’ other next-door neighbour, adding: “I just feel that this is very much a misuse of power.”
Forbes declined an interview request from Maclean’s but insisted in an email that there is “another set of correct facts” to the story. “However, because the mayor has requested an inquiry of all council and himself,” the email added, “I am unable to make any comments at this time.”
Her only public response came at the end of the same meeting Krista Page attended. “If I have erred in any way,” she said, “I assure council and the community that it was done inadvertently and in good faith with my understanding, as a new councillor, of the conflict-of-interest rules.”
Muri echoed Forbes in an email to Maclean’s, saying: “We are currently reviewing the process of this bylaw, so it would be inappropriate for me to comment.” But a response to the petition later filed in court by her lawyers denies the councillor was aware of any interest Forbes could’ve had in a pigeon ban beyond one “in common with electors of the municipality generally.”
The submission argues that neither councillor stood to gain financially from the bylaw and doubles down on the councillors’ position that the ban is legitimate and serves to protect residents from current and future pigeon keepers who might “adversely impact them or their property.”
To some, this is more than a dispute between neighbours. Givo Hassko, who is on the board of the Vancouver Poultry & Fancy Pigeon Association, told council in November he believed this was a test case for corruption in Canadian politics writ large. “If there are no consequences to how council goes to change bylaws here locally or Canada-wide,” he said, “then anyone—anyone—would get a green light.”
Hassko set up a GoFundMe to help with Dulay’s legal fees. At the time of writing, it had raised $700. A single commenter named Wayne, who pitched in $55, offered this input: “It is important that pigeons are not homeless.”
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
A native green and bronze wood pigeon with a taste for fermented fruit has been named the 2018 bird of the year in New Zealand.
The kererū is endemic to the country and can be found in both the North and South islands, living in cities as well as rural areas. Although quiet and reclusive by nature, kererū have earned a reputation as the drunkest bird in New Zealand, and been known to fall from trees after consuming rotting fruit left lying on the ground. During the summer when fruit is in abundance drunk kererū are sometimes taken to wildlife centres to sober up.
Described by conservation group Forest and Bird as “clumsy, drunk, gluttonous and glamorous,” the Kererū population is not endangered, but is vulnerable to attacks by predators such as feral cats and stoats, and also competes with possums for food.
Kererū play a vital role in dispersing the seeds of native New Zealand species such as karaka, miro, tawa and taraire across large areas, because they are one of the few birds large enough to swallow the fruit whole.
It was the clear leader in the poll, with 5,833 votes. The kākāpō came second with 3,772 and the Kakī or black stilt, an extremely rare bird that is raised by hand, coming third with 2,995 votes.
The kererū has been known to fall out of the occasional tree. Photograph: Ross Land/Getty Images
The competition, organised by Forest and Bird, is in its 14th year, and pits the country’s rare and endangered birds against one another. No bird has won twice, and this year saw the highest voter turnout on record, despite 2,000 votes being discarded after they were found to be fraudulent and originating from Australia.
More than 48,000 votes were cast this year, up from 41,000 in 2017.
Overseas celebrity endorsements from Stephen Fry for the kākāpō, and comedian Bill Bailey for the takahē upped the stakes in this year’s competition, with bird of the year also featuring on Tinder for the first time, with Shelly the kakī, or black stilt, attracting 500 matches across the country.
Although she voted for the black petrel (tāiko), prime minister Jacinda Ardern quickly offered the kererū her congratulations.
“The kererū is one of our most recognisable birds, it is often heard before it is seen,” Forest & Bird’s Megan Hubscher told Radio NZ. “It is one of our few birds that is doing OK. Only one in five of New Zealand’s native birds are increasing in number or stable, 80% are decreasing. But the kererū is doing pretty well.”
Hubscher said there were some regions of the country where kererū was not doing well – including Northland – and this was largely down to poor predator control.
However in other parts of the country where populations are thriving – such as the capital city of Wellington – road signs warn motorists to be careful because of flying kererū, which can cause serious damage because of their size and weight.
Kererū used to be hunted for their meat and feathers, but they are now protected and it is illegal to hunt them.
Some Māori tribes are given permission by the department of conservation to use the bones and feathers of kererū for cultural reasons, and reports ofthe birds being eaten for special occasions arise occasionally.
There are 168 bird species in New Zealand and about a third are threatened with extinction, with dozens more on the endangered list. Some species have dwindled to a few hundred individuals tucked away in isolated pockets of the country.
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
With less than six months before the District of North Vancouver’s pigeon prohibition takes effect, bird buffs and transparency watchdogs beseeched council on Monday to take a second look at the bylaw.
Council’s recent decision to bar residents from owning or harbouring pigeons anywhere in the district was a misuse of power, according to Guy Trotter, who previously served as a volunteer on the district’s official community plan monitoring committee.
The bylaw hurts one pigeon-keeping resident, Kulwant Dulay, and helps one pigeon-opposed resident, Coun. Betty Forbes, according to Trotter. The councillor was the only district resident to file a recent complaint about pigeons, Trotter added.
“I don’t care about pigeons one way or the other,” Trotter told council. “I do, however, care about good governance.”
The pigeon issue was first broached in a district public hearing on backyard chickens in May 2017 when Forbes, prior to winning a seat on council, asked council to re-examine their 1971-era pigeon bylaw.
“We have a pigeon bylaw?” responded a surprised then-mayor Richard Walton.
Allowing it might sound cold, Forbes suggested banning pigeons due to the possibility the birds would depress real estate values. Forbes explained she’d spent a lot of money to keep her backyard “prim and proper,” but her attempts to entertain outdoors were marred by the sight of her neighbour’s “ramshackle” pigeon coop.
Forbes also sent the district a 1,400-word missive outlining her concerns about the keeping of backyard chickens and pigeons.
Forbes was elected to council in 2018. But before being sworn in, Forbes sent an email complaining about the pigeons to district staff and requesting a remedy, according to Freedom of Information documents provided to CBC News. From April to June of 2019, Forbes and Coun. Lisa Muri had three email exchanges in which the subject line referred to pigeons.
In an April 24, 2019 email, Muri wrote to Forbes: “It will be fine, we can wave (sic) the hearing . . . if we need one.”
Council voted 4-2 to ban pigeons, with Couns. Mathew Bond and Jordan Back opposed. Forbes recused herself from council discussions and votes on the subject.
However, her emails were the subject of scrutiny for lawyer and district resident Vincent Santacroce.
“She and Coun. Muri exchanged cryptic emails about the matter,” he told council on Monday.
“I don’t believe ‘cryptic’ is appropriate,” Muri responded.
“I’ll give you a dictionary,” Santacroce replied.
The bylaw was both rushed and sloppy, according to Santacroce.
“Why was there the need for such an overhaul?” he asked. “Was there a pigeon scourge on the district worthy of an Alfred Hitchcock movie?”
Addressing criticism at the end of Monday’s meeting, Forbes offered a two-minute statement in which she mentioned the word “pigeon” once.
“If I have erred in any way I assure council and the community that it was done inadvertently and in good faith with my understanding, as a new councillor, of the conflict of interest rules,” Forbes said.
Forbes requested “additional training” for herself and her council colleagues on the issues of conflict of interest and freedom of information.
Following the meeting, Kulwant Dulay seemed distressed at what might happen to his pigeons but said he’ll try to persuade council at future meetings.
“If nothing happens . . . I’ll hire a lawyer,” he said.
Forbes received strong support from frequent council watcher Corrie Kost as well as 2018 council candidate Peter Teevan.
After explaining that a Google search revealed pigeons are classified as pests due to their ability to spread disease, Teevan defended Forbes’ actions.
“As a matter of happenstance, Ms. Forbes became Coun. Forbes and she did the proper thing according to conflict of interest regulations,” he said.
The bylaw will benefit district residents, according to Kost.
“Any one of us could have been negatively impacted then, and in the future,” he said.
Council should re-examine their decision, countered Andy Hansen, who said he has raised pigeons for most of his life.
“We get a lot of peace and love out of [keeping pigeons],” he told council.
Council failed to distinguish between feral pigeons, which might perch on a neighbour’s roof, and homing pigeons, which are trained to return to their coop, Hansen explained.
“They’re pets,” he said. “We have feral cats everywhere too. Do we ban all cats?”
Dulay’s coop is clean and tidy, according to Lynn Valley resident Krista Page.
Page spoke at council in support of her neighbour Dulay. In the spirit of community, it’s vital to try to “work things out as neighbours,” she told council.
Forbes’ comments on the issue were both vague and disappointing, according to Vancouver Poultry and Fancy Pigeon Association director Givo Hassko.
“I’m glad that I don’t live next door to a council member,” he said.
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
That pigeon in your neighborhood may not be your typical bird. Seattle Animal Control Officer Kevin Mack reports several “banded” pigeons found in the city recently.
“We’ve received at least two banded racing pigeons in the last couple weeks,” said Mack. “And I’ve had at least three sightings of banded birds that were moving through the city.
“These birds are essentially identical to local feral pigeons you see in the city, Rock Pigeons. But they really are domesticated birds and they usually have owners that want them back.”
People who race pigeons usually have a coop at their residence. They raise the birds, register them with their organization of choice, and then race them.
The race consists of driving the pigeon a pre-determined distance from their coop, setting them loose, and then seeing how long it takes them to return. Some pigeons are better at homing than others so sometimes they get lost on their way back. Other times they get injured or just plain tired.
The American Racing Pigeon Union is one of the most popular pigeon racing groups. You can tell the pigeons belong to someone who belongs to the group because they have bands on their legs with the letters “AU” on them. If you find an AU-banded pigeon
The site also has good information about how to read the information on the band and some links to other organizations for birds with other types of bands.
The pigeon that is being sheltered at the Seattle Animal Shelter is from Jeanerett, Louisiana because its band includes the local club code. “2022” is the bird’s hatch year and the long number found on the other side of the band is the bird’s unique identifier.
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
Alarm bells were sounding in the United Kingdom in October. Nope, it wasn’t another economic crisis, but a bout of the so-called “zombie pigeon” disease.#
Pigeons were making odd movements and behaving strangely. They were twisted their necks to unnatural angles, were unable to eat, wandered aimlessly around in circles… Something was happening.
Experts pointed towards the cause: paramyxovirus. The disease, while not fatal to humans, is lethal to aviary animals that contract it.
A number of pigeons had to be euthanised on the Channel island of Jersey. As of October there were no recorded cases of paramyxovirus on the British mainland.
The birds, in addition to the twisted neck, lost weight due to the physical impossibility of eating and walked in circles with clear neurological signs of the brain, as confirmed by the veterinary analyses.
Seagulls in the Snow by Ron Hill Two Gulls loving the snow in an Uckfield Garden !!!
What is paramyxovirus?
The British government last updated their disease guidance for paramyxovirus back in 2018. It states that the disease does not usually affect humans though does affect pigeons, as the images suggest.
Signs of paramyxovirus infection in pigeons may include:
nervous signs, including trembling wings and heads, and twisting of the neck
partial paralysis of wings and legs (birds may fall over on landing and be unable to feed)
They also became thin from not being able to eat and not being able to sit still while they produce green feces.
How can the disease spread?
The disease is spread by direct contact between pigeons and through:
pigeon transporters that have not been adequately cleaned and disinfected
drinking water in lofts and transporters
pigeon fanciers carrying infection on their clothes, hands and feet
JSPCA Animal Shelter told the Mirror that the illness has no treatment “and many birds die within a few days”.
“Any that do survive will continue to shed the virus and be a risk to other birds,” a spokesperson added. “At the JSPCA, affected birds are humanely euthanased.”
This disease cannot affect humans, but it can cause conjunctivitis in those who handle sick birds.
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
Researchers led by members of Oxford University’s Department of Biology have found rare colonies of the wild ancestors of common domestic and feral pigeons.
Already extinct in England and Wales, the wild Rock Dove (Columba livia) has been found on secluded Scottish and Irish islands, providing insights into how the domestic pigeon came to be.
“Feral” pigeons originate from escaped domestic birds and can be seen in towns and cities all over the world. These domestic pigeons are descended from wild Rock Doves, who nest in sea caves and mountainous areas.
Despite the success of feral pigeons, the Rock Dove has been declining throughout its global range—which once encompassed vast areas of Africa, Asia and Europe. University of Oxford DPhil student and lead author Will Smith says that “studying the decline of the Rock Dove has been challenging for researchers because of such extensive interbreeding and replacement with feral pigeons.”
Rock Doves now persist in only small, relict populations where feral pigeons have not yet been able to colonize. In fact, due to the interbreeding of feral pigeons and Rock Doves, and their resulting hybrids, many ornithologists believe that there are no truly wild Rock Doves left. However, there are potential colonies in certain places, including, in Europe, the Faroe Islands, parts of the Mediterranean and parts of Scotland and Ireland.
The researchers studied populations of birds thought to be Rock Doves in Scotland and Ireland by analyzing DNA to determine whether the birds were truly wild, and to estimate how much genetic influence from feral pigeons different wild populations had experienced.
Through a combination of expeditions and collaboration with British Trust for Ornithology bird ringers, the research team caught both feral pigeons and putative Rock Doves in places like North Uist (Uibhist a Tuath) in the Outer Hebrides, Orkney, and Cape Clear Island.
The team took feather samples from the birds for DNA analysis. By sequencing the pigeons’ DNA, they were able to show the differences between feral pigeons and Rock Doves, and also measure the degree of interbreeding between the two forms of the species.
The results confirmed that the Rock Doves of the UK and Ireland descended from the undomesticated lineage from which all feral and domestic pigeons originate, with varying degrees of interbreeding. Rock Doves in Orkney have experienced extensive interbreeding with feral pigeons and are at risk of getting hybridized to the point of their extinction as a distinct lineage. In contrast, Rock Doves in the Outer Hebrides remain almost free of feral pigeon influence.
“We identified feral pigeon ancestry in most of the Scottish and Irish Rock Dove populations we sampled, and there have been feral pigeons in Europe for hundreds of years. It was therefore really surprising to discover that the Outer Hebridean Rock Doves showed negligible signs of hybridization,” explained Will Smith.
However, feral pigeons have been reported on these islands with increasing frequency, so it might be that the distribution of wild Rock Doves in the UK continues to shrink as a result.
Recording their distribution and genetic status will help to monitor the remaining Rock Dove populations, and encourage efforts to understand potential relict populations elsewhere.
In the wider context of conservation, increasing understanding of “extinction by hybridization” will help efforts to prevent many other plants and animals, such as the Scottish wildcat, from undergoing the same fate as the Rock Dove.
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
A September expedition to Papua New Guinea confirmed via video the existence of the black-naped pheasant pigeon, a critically endangered species that has not been reported for 140 years.
“For much of the trip, it seemed like we had no chance of finding this bird,” said Jordan Boersma, co-leader of the expedition and a postdoctoral researcher at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “We were just two days away from the end of our time on Fergusson Island in Papua New Guinea when one of our remote cameras recorded the bird walking around and fanning its tail.”
The group captured the first-ever video and still photos of the bird, a large ground-dwelling species with a rust-colored back, a black head and body, and a bobbing pheasant-like tail. It may only exist far inland on Fergusson Island in hot, extremely rugged geothermal terrain laced with twisty rivers and dense with biting insects and leeches.
“After a month of searching, seeing those first photos of the pheasant pigeon felt like finding a unicorn,” said John C. Mittermeier, director of the Search for Lost Birds project at American Bird Conservancy and a core member of the expedition team. “It’s the kind of moment you dream about your entire life as a conservationist and birdwatcher.”
Almost nothing is known of the black-naped pheasant pigeon apart from two specimens collected in 1882. There are no recordings of its sounds. The researchers think it would likely sound similar to a different pheasant pigeon species on mainland Papua New Guinea—a sound locals compare to the despairing cry of a woman ostracized by her community.
Tapping into Indigenous knowledge was key to the expedition’s success. Doka Nason, a local bird expert, joined the search and advised the team on where to look. Nason set up the camera that eventually recorded the bird. “When I saw the photos, I was incredibly excited,” he said. “I was jumping around yelling, ‘We did it!'”
“It was an experience of a lifetime working with Fergusson Islanders to find the pheasant pigeon and giving talks at schools and villages about our search was a highlight,” said Jason Gregg, a co-leader of the expedition. “Kids were whispering the local name of the bird—Auwo—and everyone was talking about it. I’m so happy we know this species survives, and it opens opportunities to learn even more about the bird and its incredible home.”
But conservationists are concerned. The principal landowner where the bird was found told the search team he’d just signed a deal with a logging company—a move that could threaten the black-naped pheasant pigeon and its habitat. The team is pursuing funding so they can go back to Fergusson and try to find out how many of the species are left.
“The reason I care, why I think we should all care, is that this bird has meant something and continues to mean something to the local people,” Boersma said. “It’s part of their legends and culture. If we lose this species, then its cultural importance will be lost along with the role it plays in this fantastic ecosystem.”
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
A week after a dove — dyed pink from head to claw — was found on the streets of New York City and brought to a local bird-rescue organization for medical treatment, the bird has died, largely from toxic paint-fume inhalation.
“We are deeply sad to report that Flamingo, our sweet pink pigeon, has passed away,” announced the Wild Bird Fund on Facebook and Instagram regarding the domestic king pigeon breed. “Despite our best efforts to reduce the fumes coming off the dye, while keeping him calm and stable, he died in the night. We believe his death was caused by inhaling the toxins.”
The loss of the pigeon made headlines around the world, and the organization took the opportunity to speak on the evils of dove releases, noting, “Domestic birds — birds raised in captivity — should never be released to the wild. They will die of starvation or predation … ‘Dove releases’ sound romantic, but take away the decorations and Instagram photos, and they are the equivalent of dumping your helpless pets on the side of the road. This is no way to celebrate anything.”
The situation also reignited discussion of so-called gender-reveal celebrations, as that’s been the theory behind the bird being dyed pink and released.
“It has to be a gender reveal,” noted one of many commenters in one of several posts from the Wild Bird Fund (which did not respond to Yahoo Life’s request for comment but told a local ABC affiliate the same). “I had the same horrifying thought,” responded another commenter, with others adding, “Gender reveals are so dumb,” “Stupid freaking gender reveals” and “I will never understand the lengths straight people go to for gender reveals.”
What they’re referring to is the tradition of announcing the expected baby’s sex anatomy — not gender, incidentally, which refers to the expression of social constructs of boys and girls or women and men, and therefore not something that could be known in utero. This is often done through elaborate, made-for-Instagram displays of pink or blue, in the form of colored smoke bombs, glitter explosions and even fireworks. Or, in the likely case of Flamingo — as well as a bright blue dove that was given aid by the Connecticut-based Animal Nation rescue in 2021 — dyed birds.
“We had one that came in last year dyed blue and unfortunately didn’t make it either. Such a horrible industry for these innocent animals,” noted the rescue in an Instagram comment below the post about Flamingo. On its own post about the blue bird, Animal Nation said, “We’ve heard of pigeons and doves being dyed for gender-reveal parties or simply a ‘wow’ factor — and to have one come in like this broke our hearts. When a bird is dyed and gets wet, the water is absorbed into the dye making their feathers less water repellent which takes away their number one defense — their ability to fly.”
Bottom line, say many, holding sex-reveal parties is a practice that has got to go — for both environmental and gender-stereotyping reasons.
“I think there are a lot of points to keep in mind, things like how plastic confetti and glitter and balloon bits all contribute to plastic pollutions … sequins are all made of plastic, glitter is a microplastic, which NOAA has acknowledged can be part of marine debris,” Elizabeth Brandt, national field manager for Moms Clean Air Force, a nonprofit of mothers campaigning against air pollution, tells Yahoo Life. (NOAA is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)
“You just have to keep in mind that it’s exciting to watch a balloon go up in the air but not if it comes back down in a pond, and if a bird eats it. That’s not what you had in mind with your celebration,” she adds. “People also don’t always consider that plastic is made up of fossil fuels, and their production facilities, for those who live next to them, have health impacts.” Smoke bombs can also wreak havoc, depending on what they are made of; those with potassium chlorate release toxins into the atmosphere.
Recent examples of environmental hazards from these celebrations have included California’s El Dorado Wildfire, started by such a party’s pyrotechnic display gone awry; a similar wildfire in Arizona, the Sawmill Fire, caused by a massive blue smoke bomb and resulting in $8 million in damage; a Tannerite explosion in New Hampshire so strong it cracked a house’s foundation and turned the area’s tap water brown; a Miami helicopter flyover shooting blue confetti into the ocean, prompting an environmental group to call it out for “illegal dumping” and the pollution of an entire river in Brazil after one couple had the bright idea of dyeing a waterfall blue — in the midst of a local drought, no less.
“So many ways to do a gender-reveal party and they chose just the one that has an environmental impact,” Brazilian forestry engineer Vanessa Costa said in a tweet translated by the Washington Post at the time.
Regarding fireworks, Brandt says, “Nobody wants to start their journey in parenthood with starting a forest fire, but that’s happened; the parents were charged with multiple crimes in the El Dorado fire. … Is this really what you want to be remembered for? Is this the sort of stress you want when you are bringing another form of stress in already by becoming a parent?”
These reveal parties, she notes, “are meant as celebrations as this new era of life … and we can honor that people are excited about having a baby … [without] knowing glitter that went on to pollute the environment.” After all, she adds, “our children inherit these problems. And that’s very motivating me.”
There have even been reveal-party deaths, including those of two people related to a stunt involving flying a plane in Cancun and that of a party guest in Tennessee, where a piece of shrapnel instantly killed a woman after the parents-to-be inadvertently built a pipe bomb to explode their colored smoke. And, of course, the death of Flamingo.
“A reminder: never dye a bird!” noted the Wild Bird Fund in a post before the one announcing the bird’s death. “And please never release domestic birds or other domestic animals to the wild. They have no survival instincts and will starve or be preyed on. Dove releases in all forms are cruel. Please celebrate your life events peacefully without harming others.”
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
A raving lunatic beheaded two pigeons in Bryant Park, proclaimed he was a “vampire” — and guzzled their blood in front of a horrified crowd, witnesses told The Post.
“He was holding up the pigeons and drinking their blood, letting the blood drip down his shirt,” recalled shocked onlooker Dominic D.
“He did it twice,” the 32-year-old said. “He was covered in blood. He said he was a vampire. It was pretty disgusting.”
Witnesses told The Post that the man threw one of the dead bird heads and splattered blood all over the shirt of a person who was eating lunch. He then calmly waited for cops to arrive.
“He was very calm when the police came,” explained Clarissa Plair, a 26-year-old Theology student who spends a lot of time in Bryant Park and has seen the pigeon perp before.
“He’s always here, yelling at people on the street,” she said. “He was telling [police] he’s a vampire.”
Authorities took a man into custody about 15 minutes later and transported him to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital for a pysch evaluation, according to officials.
Photos and video posted on Twitter showed the bloody aftermath, with several pigeons swooping in to mourn their fallen bird brethren.
While the man behind the fowl fatalities is known to sit in the Bryant Park fountain drinking beer, witnesses said he’s never gone after any of his feathered friends before.
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
Homing pigeons may share the human capacity to build on the knowledge of others, improving their navigational efficiency over time, a new Oxford University study has found.
The ability to gather, pass on and improve on knowledge over generations is known as cumulative culture. Until now humans and, arguably some other primates, were the only species thought to be capable of it.
Takao Sasaki and Dora Biro, Research Associates in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University, conducted a study testing whether homing pigeons can gradually improve their flight paths, over time. They removed and replaced individuals in pairs of birds that were given a specific navigational task. Ten chains of birds were released from the same site and generational succession was simulated with the continuous replacement of birds familiar with the route with inexperienced birds who had never flown the course before. The idea was that these individuals could then pass their experience of the route down to the next pair generation, and also enable the collective intelligence of the group to continuously improve the route’s efficiency.
The findings, published in Nature Communications, suggest that over time, the student does indeed become the teacher. The pairs’ homing performance improved consistently over generations — they streamlined their route to be more direct. Later generation groups eventually outperformed individuals that flew solo or in groups that never changed membership. Homing routes were also found to be more similar in consecutive generations of the same chain of pigeon pairs than across them, showing cross-generational knowledge transfer, or a “culture” of homing routes.
Takao Sasaki, co-author and Research Fellow in the Department of Zoology said: ‘At one stage scientists thought that only humans had the cognitive capacity to accumulate knowledge as a society. Our study shows that pigeons share these abilities with humans, at least to the extent that they are capable of improving on a behavioural solution progressively over time. Nonetheless, we do not claim that they achieve this through the same processes.’
When people share and pass knowledge down through generations, our culture tends to become more complex over time, There are many good examples of this from manufacturing and engineering. By contrast, when the process occurs between homing pigeons, the end result is an increase in the efficiency, (in this case navigational), but not necessarily the complexity, of the behaviour.
Takao Sasaki added: ‘Although they have different processes, our findings demonstrate that pigeons can accumulate knowledge and progressively improve their performance, satisfying the criteria for cumulative culture. Our results further suggest that cumulative culture does not require sophisticated cognitive abilities as previously thought.’
This study shows that collective intelligence, which typically focuses on one-time performance, can emerge from accumulation of knowledge over time.
Dora Biro, co-author and Associate Professor of Animal Behaviour concludes: ‘One key novelty, we think, is that the gradual improvement we see is not due to new ‘ideas’ about how to improve the route being introduced by individual birds. Instead, the necessary innovations in each generation come from a form of collective intelligence that arises through pairs of birds having to solve the problem together — in other words through ‘two heads being better than one’.’
Moving forward, the team intend to build on the study by investigating if a similar style of knowledge sharing and accumulation occurs in other multi-generational species’ social groups. Many animal groups have to solve the same problems repeatedly in the natural world, and if they use feedback from past outcomes of these tasks or events, this has the potential to influence, and potentially improve, the decisions the groups make in the future.
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
FERAL PIGEONS, WHICH LIVE ON every continent in the world except Antartica, are famously adaptable—They shack up all over, from San Francisco to London to Mumbai.
They are also in Calgary, where around 200 of them have made their home on the roof of the South Health Campus, a 269-bed hospital. This was an unwelcome development, since pigeons can carry disease, and they poop a lot.
The hospital’s efforts to get rid of them—including with noise, which worked at first, before the birds got used to it—haven’t been successful, so recently they chose to get a little more serious. They’ve hired three baby peregrine falcons, according to the CBC, as a future anti-pigeon patrol.
A falconer, John Campbell, plans to release the falcons from the building, where it is hoped they will hunt down the pigeons and “other small game,” the CBC reports.
“You could [use] anything that would scare them, that would go after them as prey,” Campbell said. “It doesn’t have to be falcons but the falcons work very well.”
It will be a little time before the falcons get to the hunting, as just one has fledged so far. In the meantime, though, they’re being fed dead pigeons to give them a taste for pigeon blood.
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
Many animals will sound an alarm to alert other members of their group of impending danger. Now, researchers reporting in Current Biology on November 9 have shown that crested pigeons do this in a surprisingly non-vocal way. One of their main flight feathers produces a critical high-pitched sound as the birds fly away. As they flap faster to escape a predator, that alarm signal automatically increases in tempo.
Importantly, the researchers also show that other crested pigeons flee when they hear that sound. The findings confirm that the sound is a bona fide signal, not just a side effect of flight.
“Crested pigeons signal danger with noisy wings, not voices,” says Trevor Murray of The Australian National University. “It shows that birds really can use their feathers as ‘musical instruments’ to communicate with others.”
Charles Darwin proposed the idea of non-vocal “instruments” in birds about 150 years ago, but it has been a difficult idea to test. Scientists had long known that crested pigeons make loud sounds when they fly. For that reason, they are sometimes called “whistle-winged pigeons.” The Australian National University lab led by Robert Magrath earlier found that other pigeons pay attention to those sounds.
To confirm that the whistling feathers were indeed an alarm signal, in this new study, the researchers shot high-speed video and conducted feather-removal experiments. These studies show that the birds’ unusually narrow eighth primary wing feather produces a distinct note with each downstroke. The sound also changes as birds flap faster, such that those fleeing danger produce wing sounds with a higher tempo.
In fact, the birds’ wings produce alternating high and low notes in flight. The researchers’ experiments showed that the eighth primary wing feather is responsible for the high notes. The low notes come from the ninth primary feather. But, playback experiments showed, only the high notes are critical for sounding an alarm.
When the researchers played flight sounds to other pigeons, individuals were much more likely to flee upon hearing the flight of a bird with an intact eighth primary feather. When they played the sound of a pigeon with that eighth feather removed, they often just looked around instead of taking off.
“We show that the crested pigeon produces an acoustic alarm signal with its wings and that it is an intrinsically reliable signal of danger,” Murray says. “The alarm signal is intrinsically reliable because pigeons flap faster to escape predators, and this fast flapping automatically produces the high-tempo alarm signal.”
Crested pigeons are not the only birds known to produce unusually loud sounds with their wings, the researchers note. Pigeons in general fly noisily. Hummingbirds and manikins are also well known for their wing sounds. They hope that future studies will explore the evolution of wing sounds in other bird species.
“Birds have such prominent voices, we have largely ignored their surprisingly complex instrumental sounds,” Magrath says.
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
Pigeons are capable of switching between two tasks as quickly as humans — and even more quickly in certain situations. These are the findings of biopsychologists who had performed the same behavioural experiments to test birds and humans. The authors hypothesize that the cause of the slight multitasking advantage in birds is their higher neuronal density.
Dr Sara Letzner and Prof Dr Dr h. c. Onur Güntürkün from Ruhr-Universität Bochum published the results in the journal “Current Biology” in collaboration with Prof Dr Christian Beste from the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus at Technische Universität Dresden.
“For a long time, scientists used to believe the mammalian cerebral cortex to be the anatomical cause of cognitive ability; it is made up of six cortical layers,” says Sara Letzner. In birds, however, such a structure does not exist. “That means the structure of the mammalian cortex cannot be decisive for complex cognitive functions such as multitasking,” continues Letzner.
Six times as densely packed
The pallium of birds does not have any layers comparable to those in the human cortex; but its neurons are more densely packed than in the cerebral cortex in humans: pigeons, for example, have six times as many nerve cells as humans per cubic millimetre of brain. Consequently, the average distance between two neurons in pigeons is fifty per cent shorter than in humans. As the speed at which nerve cell signals are transmitted is the same in both birds and mammals, researchers had assumed that information is processed more quickly in avian brains than in mammalian brains.
They tested this hypothesis using a multitasking exercise that was performed by 15 humans and 12 pigeons. In the experiment, both the human and the avian participants had to stop a task in progress and switch over to an alternative task as quickly as possible. The switchover to the alternative task was performed either at the same time the first task was stopped, or it was delayed by 300 milliseconds.
What makes pigeons faster
In the first case, real multitasking takes place, which means that two processes are running simultaneously in the brain, those being the stopping of the first task and switching over to the alternative task. Pigeons and humans both slow down by the same amount under double stress.
In the second case — switching over to the alternative task after a short delay — the processes in the brain undergo a change: the two processes, namely stopping the first task and switching over to the second task, alternate like in a ping-pong game. For this purpose, the groups of nerve cells that control both processes have to continuously send signals back and forth. The researchers had assumed that pigeons must have an advantage over humans because of their greater nerve cell density. They were, in fact, 250 milliseconds faster than humans.
“Researchers in the field of cognitive neuroscience have been wondering for a long time how it was possible that some birds, such as crows or parrots, are smart enough to rival chimpanzees in terms of cognitive abilities, despite their small brains and their lack of a cortex,” says Letzner. The results of the current study provide a partial answer to this mystery: it is precisely because of their small brain that is densely packed with nerve cells that birds are able to reduce the processing time in tasks that require rapid interaction between different groups of neurons.
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
For 53 years, large flocks of pigeons have called the Sid Buckwold Bridge home.
And for 53 years, they’ve also used it as a washroom.
The City of Saskatoon is embarking on a dirty mission to rid the bridge of 348 metric tonnes of pigeon poop over the next several months.
Angela Gardiner, the city’s general manager of transportation and construction, told Saskatchewan Afternoon that the collective weight of the droppings is equivalent to 232 mid-sized vehicles being parked on the bridge at all times.
She said the pigeons have been holing up inside utility cavities in the bridge and those provide a cozier home than other crossings in Saskatoon.
“Once we actually got in there over the last couple of years … the extent of the pigeon droppings was quite a bit more than we had anticipated,” Gardiner said.
She emphasized there hasn’t been any structural damage to the Sid Buckwold Bridge from the pigeon poop, but if it were left to stay, it could start wearing it out.
The pigeon droppings contain uric acid, which has the potential to eat away at the concrete used to build the crossing.
“There is a potential with any dead load like this that it could impact the structural integrity,” she said.
Specialized crews have been hired by the city to remove the droppings at the same time as rehabilitation work is done on the overall structure of the bridge.
In addition to the bridge cleanup, workers will install barriers to make it harder for birds to nest on the structure in the future.
However, the pigeons that have been displaced from the bridge will keep coming back — so Gardiner said the city plans to euthanize all 1,500 of them “humanely.”
“Part of the problem with pigeons is they’re homing birds, so if you just relocate them elsewhere, they’ll come back very quickly,” Gardiner said.
“If we fenced it off or prevented them from getting back there, they’ll just find a nearby location. I don’t think anyone wants 1,500 pigeons on their property.”
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
Two patients have died at a hospital after contracting a fungal infection linked to pigeon droppings.
The individuals are thought have caught the airborne disease at the Queen Elizabeth University hospital in Glasgow after inhaling the fungus cryptococcus, typically found in soil and pigeon droppings.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC), which runs the hospital, has launched an investigation into the outbreak. It said the likely source of the pigeon droppings was a non-public room, thought to contain machinery, which has now been cleaned.
NHSGGC said “control measures” had been introduced, which is understood to mean equipment to filter the air in some parts of the hospital, and that some patients, including children, who may be vulnerable to the disease have received medication, which was proving effective.
The health board said that the second patient who died was elderly and the death was due to an unrelated matter. It said it could not share further details of the case because of patient confidentiality.
Teresa Inkster, NHSGGC lead consultant for infection control, said: “Cryptococcus lives in the environment throughout the world. It rarely causes infection in humans. People can become infected with it after breathing in the microscopic fungi, although most people who are exposed to it never get sick from it.”
She said there had been no further cases since control measures were put in place. “We are continuing to monitor the air quality and these results are being analysed. It remains our priority to ensure a safe environment for patients and staff,” she added.
Portable air filters have been installed to help reassure “vulnerable patients”, NHSGGC said, adding that the organism is “harmless to the vast majority of people and rarely causes disease in humans”. A group of hospital patients are being moved within the hospital “due to their clinical diagnosis and ongoing treatment”.
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
Prior to this past weekend I had never heard of pigeon bowling. Who has? Even upon learning about it, I thought it was a joke. But then I saw the footage, from the Harrow Fair in Essex, Ont., shared across social and news media over the last few days.
And there it was. Fair-goers, including children, intently watching as competitors roll live birds into balls and toss them along the ground. The birds flutter and flap to a stop, their place marked by a judge.
It could be comical if not so dumbfounding, so disturbing. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. Not surprisingly, the footage and news stories went viral. The shock was immediate and the online vitriol continues today.
How could such an obviously ridiculous — obviously wrong — event be taking place, not in some foreign place we can chalk up to different cultural standards, but right in our own backyard?
I am not a pigeon expert, and those who claim to be, in this case, state this particular type of bird rolls naturally, that they are bred for this and are treated well. I’m sure most of these folks aren’t actually animal abusers. They’ve likely been watching and participating in this event their whole lives. And now, to have their wholesome event infiltrated, their traditions exposed for all to see, it must be jarring.
But it’s certainly necessary. Because the time has come for country fairs to change.
Another classic fair event, the pig scramble, has also come under well-deserved scrutiny in recent years. The event, which typically sees children frantically chasing and capturing terrified piglets, was cancelled at one PEI fair in 2017. The famous Sonoma County Fair in California also cancelled its recently, due to animal welfare concerns. Instead, pig chasing has been replaced with a slippery watermelon obstacle course.
As a culture, we are waking up to the fact that using animals in these ways is wrong.
And just as keeping captive whales and dolphins was recently banned in Canada and animal circuses are being barred by more and more municipalities across the country, it’s time for unethical fair events, including pigeon bowling and pig wrestling, to also go the way of the dodo.
The issue is not even whether or not these types of events are cruel. The issue is, whether it’s a massive whale at Marineland, or a small pigeon at the Harrow Fair, there simply is no ethical argument to justify exploiting animals for our silly entertainment.
Not anymore. We just know too much now. We know animals can experience stress and fear. We know animals are individuals with their own natural needs and desires.
This may be a tough pill to swallow, for the farming-4H-country crowd, but ultimately, this change is good. Values and traditions and knowledge can evolve for the better. You can, too.
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
The Toronto Wildlife Centre (TWC) found a pigeon with singed feathers and “scorched shut” eyes following an explosion under a downtown Toronto bridge late last month.
On Nov. 26, emergency crews responded to Bathurst Street and Fort York Boulevard just after 11 p.m., following reports of an explosion underneath the bridge.
Videos circulated on social media with loud noises and heavy plumes of smoke billowing from the bridge.
No human injuries were reported, but TWC says a pigeon was unable to escape from the flames unharmed.
“Several days after the explosion, Ariel spotted this helpless pigeon walking along the pavement,” TWC said in a Facebook post shared Friday. “His precious feathers were all singed and his typically bright orange eyes were scorched shut, leaving him practically blind.”
Ariel, whose last name was not shared in the post, called TWC’s wildlife hotline, where the bird was quickly admitted.
Upon medical inspection, one of TWC’s wildlife rehabilitation managers saw the pigeon had burns all over his body, and wings. There were even some marks inside the bird’s mouth, the centre said.
“With a gentle touch, she cleaned his wounds and gave him antibiotics to prevent infection and medicine to ease his pain,” the post reads.
A warm compress helped the bird to open his eyes again, but TWC says he will still need some treatment to heal fully.
“We are so grateful for those in the community who show pigeons the compassion they deserve,” the organization said. “This little patient will continue to receive the care he needs until he’s ready to fly again.”
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor or 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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1 877-4-NO-BIRD,(604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosing / Vancouver Pigeon Control / Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / PIgeon Deterrent / Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest / Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons / What to do about pigeons / sparrows, Damage by Sparrows, How to Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests / De-fence / Pigeon Nesting / Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping / woodpecker control / Professional Bird Control Company / Keep The Birds Away / Birds/rats/seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/pidgeon control/flying rats/pigeon problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/bird guard
