CTA, officials up rally against a determined pigeon feeder at Northwest Side station

CTA, officials up rally against a determined pigeon feeder at Northwest Side station

Young Kang, avid pigeon feeder is causing issues for the CTA

By MARY WISNIEWSKI – Chicago Tribune

State Rep. Jaime Andrade has been fighting a losing battle to clean up the mess made by pigeons at the CTA’s Irving Park Blue Line station on the city’s Northwest Side.

The sidewalk by the station is so thickly spackled with droppings that it looks and smells like a chicken coop. Andrade, who represents the district that includes the station, has pushed for state funds to keep the birds away. Earlier this month, he was hit in the head by guano during a television interview.

But Andrade, state and city officials and the CTA are up against someone who is determined to feed and protect birds around the city and visits the Irving Park station often with big sacks of white rice.

Pigeons being fed an individual leaving behind a mess of food scraps and droppings.

“I protect all God’s creatures because this is my mission,” said Young Kang, 67, while at the Hoa Nam Grocery store on Argyle Street in Uptown last week, where she buys supplies to feed the birds. “This is not for my good. God gave this to me. I take care of the birds.”

Kang, who used to be in the restaurant business, said she is a Christian minister and founder of a nonprofit. It has been incorporated as Young Bird Care Society since April 2015 and is in good standing, according to the Illinois Secretary of State’s office. Over the past 11 years, Kang said she has spent $300,000 of her own money feeding birds in locations around the city, going out every day and hiring people to help.

She said she also helps the homeless, stuffing money under their pillows as they sleep.

pigeon flock perching on roof

CTA riders interviewed outside the Irving Park station described the pigeon situation as “gross” and “terrible” and wondered why more netting couldn’t be put up in more areas of the bridge. Illinois Department of Transportation spokesman Guy Tridgell said the agency can’t do this because it needs to have the area open for inspections and other maintenance.

“We’re happy to continue discussing and meeting with all interested parties to see if there’s some solution,” Tridgell said.

Andrade disagreed with IDOT’s explanation, saying netting could easily be removed for inspections. “The problem comes down to who is going to pay,” he said.

There is some metal netting under the Kennedy bridge, apart from the area around the CTA station entrance, but some of it is in disrepair.

By contrast, anti-pigeon netting is completely installed on the beams under the Union Pacific railroad bridge, above the sidewalk, just west of the CTA station. The bridge carries Metra’s Union Pacific Northwest Line.

Mary Parich of Independence Park said that sometimes the pigeon mess on the sidewalk is so bad that she has to tip-toe.

“They are God’s creatures, but you have to look out for the health of people, too,” Parich said.

Kang said she once lived in the neighborhood, and the birds have always been there, long before she started feeding them.

About Pigeon Patrol:

Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.

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

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Dozens of ‘decorated’ pigeons found dead in New Zealand

Dozens of ‘decorated’ pigeons found dead in New Zealand

Pigeon covered in tinsel is investigated

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

 

Originally By Lisa Jane Harding, CNN

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

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

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

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

About Pigeon Patrol:

Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.

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

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

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

Cadiz Cathedral in Spain is facing a pigeon infestation.

Cadiz Cathedral in Spain is facing a pigeon infestation.

Laura Perez Maestro, CNN • Updated 13th December 2018

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

Brazen Pigeons feeding directly from the table.

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

Health risks

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

 

Inside the fascinating and sometimes brutal world of pigeon racing in China

Inside the fascinating and sometimes brutal world of pigeon racing in China

Pigeon racer holds prized bird

By Karoline Kan, CNN • 6th April 2019

Every day during the racing season, 55-year-old Zhang Yajun wakes at 4 a.m. and carefully loads bamboo cages containing his 76 cherished racing pigeons into a van. Then he drives up to 200 kilometers (124 miles) from his Beijing apartment to release them. They are in training for the October and November racing season, during which time millions of dollars can be won in total prize money across races.

Zhang is just one of some 100,000 pigeon breeders living in Beijing, according to Sun Yan, the deputy general-secretary of the Beijing Changping District Racing Pigeons Association.
“Pigeon racing is a culture, but it’s also a sport,” Sun says.
On a crisp fall morning, Zhang opens the cages in a cornfield at Niutuo in Hebei province, 80 km (50 miles) south of Beijing. Forty minutes later, he uses his phone connection to a rooftop camera to watch the birds arriving home. He’s happy with their speed.
Zhang, who was a state-owned beverage factory manager before retiring in the early 2000s, says he spends about 100,000 yuan ($14,900) a year on his pigeons. That covers food, medicine, race entry fees and transport costs for training sessions — as well as equipment such as his rooftop camera gear.
Each spring, Zhang says, some 100 pigeons are born on his roof but by fall only about 20 are left. The rest have either succumbed to illness or died of injuries suffered from hitting telegraph poles or other obstacles. Or else they just got lost on the way home.
But pigeon racing also has a darker side.
Zhang says “bird-napping” — when pigeons are baited and netted during training sessions before being sold off — is a common problem.

And then there is the cheating.

In April last year, two men hid their birds in milk cartons and caught a bullet train in Henan before releasing them in Shanghai, 750 km (466 miles) away. But the birds’ unusually fast speed aroused suspicion, and the men were fined and given suspended three-year prison sentences for fraudulently obtaining prize money totaling about $147,000.

 

However; Beijing is becoming less and less friendly to bird fanciers.

In the spring of 2017, under a city beautification campaign targeting two-story buildings in the lanes known as hutongs, many rooftop pigeon lofts were subsequently demolished.
The government classified them as illegal buildings.
Breeder Zhang Jian says four large pigeon cages on his roof were demolished, although he still surreptitiously keeps four other cages housing about 100 pigeons. Most of his neighbors have known Zhang Jian since he was a boy and he says they understand his passion for the birds.

 

About Pigeon Patrol:

Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.

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

Windsor city issues warning to clean up rooftop swamp

Windsor city issues warning to clean up rooftop swamp

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a Pigeon Problem?

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 eight years in a row.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Uptown Alderman to Make Feed Pigeons Criminal

Uptown Alderman to Make Feed Pigeons Criminal

Birds being fed outside a train station

Feeding pigeons swarm to pick up chips outside Wilson transit stop

CHICAGO (CBS) — Pigeons; they’re tolerated at best, hated at worst. Now, one Chicago alderman wants to make it a crime to feed pigeons.

CBS 2’s Dana Kozlov reports some people are calling the proposal by Ald. James Cappleman (46th) a bird-brained idea.

Uptown, downtown – pigeons are everywhere in Chicago.

Thursday morning, Barb Wambach was visiting the Christkindlmarket at Daley Plaza – where dozens of pigeons gather every day, keeping warm by the eternal flame – when she got an unpleasant surprise dropped on the boot-shaped mug she was holding.

“I moved my cup, and it felt like something plopped in it,” Wambach said. After a group of pigeons flew overhead, she found a splattering of bird droppings on her mug.

It’s that threat to everyday living, that fear of walking under a viaduct, the scourge of flying birds that Cappleman wants to eradicate.

He has introduced an ordinance that would significantly increase the penalties for feeding pigeons – making it a crime punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.

Cappleman wasn’t available Thursday to discuss his proposal, but he told other aldermen he’s tired of encountering a scene from a Hitchcock movie every time he walks to the Wilson station on the CTA Red Line.

Scores – if not hundreds – of the birds perch at the station, just waiting to be fed. A huge flock of them swarmed down to the sidewalk Thursday afternoon to descend on some potato chip crumbs like hunters on prey.

“They’re a nuisance. They’re everywhere. You know, you could stand there waiting on the bus and they’re all over your feet,” Bobby Williams said outside the Wilson stop. “I think it should be illegal to feed them.”

It’s already a city code violation to feed pigeons – as signs at the Wilson stop indicate – punishable by a fine of up to $500. Cappleman’s proposal would double the maximum fine and add the possibility of up to six months in jail.

“They’re gonna arrest someone for feeding a bird?” Lily Norton said. “That’s kind of ridiculous.”

“It’s silly. He should be focusing on other problems,” Oliver Guyton said. “Like the budget and all that type of stuff that aldermen do.”

In May, Cappleman was assaulted by a woman in Uptown, after he started sweeping away the breadcrumbs she had spread on the ground for pigeons near Broadway and Wilson Avenue.

At the time, the alderman said the area is littered with breadcrumbs every day and has a serious pigeon problem. He has also said the breadcrumbs people leave for the birds could attract rats, too, so his staff regularly cleans up breadcrumbs left on the streets.

Orignal by – DANA KOZLOV (CBS)

Have a Pigeon Problem?

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 eight years in a row.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

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