Crews tasked with cleaning a Saskatchewan bridge are in for a dirty job.
The City of Saskatoon said that over the last 50 years one of its bridges has accumulated nearly 350 tonnes of pigeon poop – which is roughly equal to 230 cars parked on the bridge.
It said the feces adds unnecessary weight and the pigeon droppings contain uric acid which can damage concrete, affecting the integrity of the bridge.
This also means the extermination of about 1,500 members of the feathered flock that makes the Sid Buckwold Bridge home.
The city said relocating or displacing the birds is not recommended because they are likely to fly back or move into other private properties or civic spaces. Homing pigeons are likely to return to their original roosting areas, making relocation difficult as a long term solution.
A local wildlife advocate is disappointed and questions why alternatives can’t be found that would allow the birds to live. “In Saskatchewan, a very, very, very common response is if it pisses you off, shoot it,” said Jan Shadick, volunteer director of Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation.
Regina and Vancouver rely on pigeon spikes, protective netting or cages to keep pigeons off their facilities. Toronto and Calgary do not practice Pigeon control.
Here at Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture, sell, and install humane bird exclusion products, such as bird spikes and netting.
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WOLCOTT — Someone discarded 145 living pigeons this winter the way one throws out an empty disposable coffee cup — by tossing them into a trash dumpster.
The night caretaker at the northbound Interstate 65 rest area in White County found the first 57 birds in the middle of December as he took the trash out, said Kim Hoover of the Hoots to Howls Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in rural Pulaski County. Some of the birds trapped inside boxes died, she said.
She took the birds and found homes for most of them, keeping the blind and crippled birds at the rehabilitation center.
Then on Feb. 28, the caretaker found more boxes of birds in the same dumpster at the same rest area.
“Same mozzarella cheese boxes. Same person’s name and number on the leg ban,” she said.
The first group of birds found were standing in feces that were caked to their feet and matted in their feathers, Hoover said. It appeared they’d been in the dumpster for a while and were in poor health.
The second group was found in better condition and did not have trash piled on top of the boxes, indicating that they had not been in the dumpster that long, Hoover said.
That person’s name on the leg band is Bahman Ghassab from Dublin, Ohio, Hoover said. The bands also had a telephone number to reach Ghassab. The Journal & Courier called that number on Wednesday, but it is no longer a working number.
But after the find in December, Hoover said one of her associates did call the number, and Ghassab answered.
“He said he sold some birds to someone in Florida and in Illinois,” Hoover said, “and he would not give any more info than that.
“When asked why would you sell sick starving and injured pigeons and better yet why would someone buy them in this condition, the conversation ended,” Hoover said.
The Journal & Courier contacted John DeCarlo Jr., president of the National Pigeon Association. He checked the association’s membership list, and Ghassab is not a member.
“These birds don’t fly,” Hoover said.
The Journal & Courier texted photos of the birds to DeCarlo, who is in California.
“I don’t know why they don’t fly,” he said, noting this particular breed of pigeon is the Iranian high fliers.
The Iranian high fliers are capable of flight, unlike the one particular breed that Hoover mistakenly was told the rescued birds belonged to, DeCarlo said.
The birds might not fly because they are sick or are under fed or are under conditioned, DeCarlo said. Or they might have been altered so they can’t fly, he added.
Someone told Hoover the birds were likely part of an illegal gambling ring, but that doesn’t seem likely, according to DeCarlo.
The only gambling in the pigeon hobby is among racing pigeons, and these are not racing pigeons, he said.
The flightless pigeon breed is known as parlor rollers. They have been genetically bred not to fly, and when they are nervous or excited, they roll, Decarlo said. There is a competition among parlor rollers to see whose bird can roll the furthest, but it’s not cruel because this is the natural way these birds behave, according to several pigeon experts interviewed Wednesday by the Journal & Courier.
Everyone interviewed Wednesday was incensed by the way these birds were discarded.
Hoover said no one seems interested in investigating it as a criminal case.
“From what I’m told, they’re not pets; they’re not farm animals, so nobody does anything,” she said.
National Pigeon Association Secretary/Treasurer Tim Heidrich of Georgia doesn’t see why it couldn’t be prosecuted.
“To me, it’s like animal cruelty,” Heidrich said. “There are ways to get rid of them without being cruel about it.”
“There are quite a few small shows,” he said. “You can go to these things and sell them — give them away to the kids.”
DeCarlo suggested giving unwanted pigeons to 4Hers so they can learn the hobby and show them.
Finding so many birds thrown away begs the question of whether other birds met with a similar fate only went undiscovered at other locations.
“We don’t know if this is the first time,” Hoover said. “Is it happening at other rest parks? We don’t know.
“I just wish he’d stop. These birds don’t deserve to be thrown out.”
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BOSTON — Along with all the usual declarations and deductions, Massachusetts residents have been asked to keep something else in mind this tax season: pigeon droppings.
In an unusual and at times stomach-turning appeal, the state agency MassWildlife proposed that one way to fight back against the sticky messes befouling cars and damaging bridges is for taxpayers to check a box on their tax forms to support the state’s endangered species program.
How so? Peregrine falcons are among the program’s beneficiaries, and they prey on pigeons.
“Hate pigeon poop? Save peregrine falcons,” begins the message on the agency’s website and in a recent newsletter. It goes on to picture a typical motorist driving home from work over one of the state’s major bridges.
“You’re thinking about dinner as you wait in traffic when — PLOP! — something white and black falls onto your windshield,” the post continues.
Next comes a scientific breakdown of the bird droppings that includes an explanation — for inquiring minds that need to know — of the precise difference between the dark and white portions.
Damage: And then, lest the reader believe it’s all no more than a yucky nuisance, this warning: “This paste-like substance is so acidic and corrosive, that it can damage your car’s paint job. And you guessed it, groups of birds all going to the bathroom in the same place can make man-made structures like bridges deteriorate faster.”
Enter the peregrine falcon, a magnificent predator that can attain speeds of 240 mph in high-elevation dives, no match for the slower and less agile pigeon, which just so happens to be one of the peregrine’s favorite feasts.
Peregrine falcons disappeared from Massachusetts in the mid-1950s and soon after in the entire eastern U.S., their demise largely blamed on the pesticide DDT, according to the state’s Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program.
After the chemical was banned, efforts picked up to reintroduce the raptor, sometimes confused with more common varieties of hawk.
Pigeon-hunting perches: To the surprise of some ornithologists, many of the newcomers eschewed their former rural habitats and became city dwellers. Instead of on cliffs, they began nesting on tall building ledges and bridges in urban areas where food sources — pigeons, especially — were more plentiful.
To help the falcons along, state officials and volunteers placed nesting boxes in strategic locations such as the Custom House Tower in Boston, the 28-story W.E.B. Du Bois Library at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the heavily traveled Tobin Bridge spanning the Mystic River.
“Falcon cams” were even installed to offer a continuous livestream of peregrine comings and goings.
The restoration effort is partially funded by voluntary donations from taxpayers, who can choose to contribute to “endangered wildlife conservation” on their state returns. The money supports more than 400 threatened or endangered plants and animals, from bog turtles to timber rattlesnakes, but the peregrine falcon is easily among the most “charismatic,” said David Paulson, senior endangered species biologist for MassWildlife.
Donations: Contributions to the fund have been increasing but remain well below levels needed, according to state officials and wildlife experts. About 23,000 taxpayers gave $312,000 through the tax check-off in 2017, the last full year for which figures were available, compared with the $178,000 provided by approximately 18,000 taxpayers in 2013.
It’s not just bird lovers and conservationists embracing the slow but steady revival of the peregrine falcons.
State transportation engineers have noticed a reduction in the pigeon population on bridges with nesting falcons, officials said. Fewer pigeons means less waste building up on bridge surfaces, rusting the steel and increasing the costs for maintenance and bridge replacement.
“It’s almost like a symbiotic relationship,” Paulson said. “The structure provides the habitat, and the falcons kind of provide the pest management, for lack of a better term.”
Officials hope drivers when completing their tax forms will see the peregrine as a feathered friend that can make an unwanted splattering a bit less likely.
The falcons “are never going to eliminate (pigeons), but they can help to manage them,” Paulson said.
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MADRID — The Spanish city of Cádiz will undertake what some may see as a Sisyphean task: relocating 5,000 pigeons hundreds of miles away after a complaint that the birds are driving away tourists from the terraces of cafes in the most visited part of the southern port city.
Carrier pigeons probably date back to ancient Persia. But under a plan announced last month by Cádiz officials, the pigeons themselves will be carried: They will be captured and transported next year to a thinly populated countryside location in eastern Spain. There, they will find a new home in a dovecote near the town of Ribarroja del Turia.
The exile solution to pigeon overcrowding is being presented as a more animal-friendly approach than that taken in other places, where pigeons are treated like flying rats to be culled or fed contraceptive pills that may also be consumed by other species.
The city will use “the most respectful and sustainable method” to keep its pigeon population under control, Álvaro de la Fuente, the city official in charge of environmental policy, said in a statement.
The city came up with the plan after Horeca, a regional federation of hoteliers, complained two years ago that the pigeons were menacing tourists, particularly in the city’s emblematic cathedral square.
“When the pigeon gets hungry, it can get very forceful and often doesn’t even wait for the tourists to leave their table to go for their food,” said Antonio De María Ceballos, a restaurant owner and the president of Horeca.
Horeca also argued that pigeon excrement presents a health risk for waiters and other employees who have to clean pigeon-occupied dining and drinking areas.
The risk, Mr. De María Ceballos said, was confirmed last year by a court ruling in Catalonia that upheld the disability claim of a Barcelona tourism official who said that she contracted pulmonary fibrosis from exposure to floating particles of bird excrement while working in pigeon-filled city squares.
“Nobody here has anything against pigeons or other animals, but something must be done when they proliferate to the point of presenting a health risk,” said Mr. De María Ceballos.
The city hopes to carry out the relocation next year. The 5,000 or so pigeons will have to be trapped and undergo health checks before they are transported and released in eastern Spain, about 375 miles from Cádiz. The hope is that the highly adaptable rock pigeons will be happy to resettle there rather than be tempted to make the return flight.
Mr. de la Fuente, the city official, is also calling on residents to play their part and stop overfeeding pigeons.
He argued that fighting pigeon overpopulation can also helped avoid the spread of “other plagues like rodents.”
City Hall will distribute 3,000 leaflets about how to deal with pigeons, hoping to educate rather than fine its residents for overindulging the birds.
In London, under legislation adopted a decade ago, people risk a fine of as much as 500 pounds ($636) for feeding pigeons around Trafalgar Square.
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NHS Lanarkshire confirmed that additional checks will be carried out at Hairmyres, Monklands and Wishaw General with “remedial actions” taken if necessary.
NHS Ayrshire and Arran said all hospital plant rooms were regularly checked for “potential threats.”
John Paterson, NHS Lanarkshire director of property and support services, said: “Planned preventative maintenance programmes are being reviewed and refreshed in light of emerging details from the recent incident at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.
“We are currently carrying out additional checks for the presence of pigeons and taking any necessary remedial actions if found or reported.”
A spokeswoman for NHS Ayrshire and Arran, which runs hospitals including Crosshouse in Kilmarnock, said: “NHS Ayrshire & Arran Estates Department regularly monitors the safety of the plant rooms at all of our major sites against all potential threats or defects, including access by vermin.
“ Should any infection control issues occur, we work closely with our Infection Control department to deal with them immediately.”
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TransLink is trying to deal with a bird poop problem around the Commercial-Broadway SkyTrain station.
Pigeons have been nesting at a new platform that’s set to open early next month.
The noise of the SkyTrain — and the hustle and bustle of the commuters — isn’t enough to scare off the birds. So, Jill Drews with TransLink tells us a falcon has been brought in.
“The falcon kind of goes in from time to time and scares them away. Hopefully, they remember this is not a safe place to be.”
Drews says they’ll also be setting up electric strips, “The shock is very, very minor, it won’t harm the birds. But it’s just irritating so it will hopefully deter them from nesting.”
TransLink will also be installing spikes and netting to stop the birds from landing.
The new platform at the Commercial-Broadway station is set to open on Feb. 2. It will allow commuters to enter the westbound SkyTrains from both sides.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
