by Pigeon Patrol | Feb 22, 2022 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Predators, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows, UltraSonic Bird Control
Though they’re often described as “rats with wings” (a phrase popularized by the movie Stardust Memories), pigeons are actually pretty cool. From homing instincts to misleading rump feathers, here are 15 things you might not know about these avian adventurers.
1. THEY MIGHT BE THE FIRST DOMESTICATED BIRD.
The common city pigeon (Columba livia), also known as the rock pigeon, might be the first bird humankind ever domesticated. You can see them in art dating back as far as 4500 BCE in modern Iraq, and they’ve been a valuable source of food for thousands of years.
2. THEY WON OVER CHARLES DARWIN—AND NIKOLA TESLA.
Pigeon-breeding was a common hobby in Victorian England for everyone from well-off businessmen to average Joes, leading to some fantastically weird birds. Few hobbyists had more enthusiasm for the breeding process than Charles Darwin, who owned a diverse flock, joined London pigeon clubs, and hobnobbed with famous breeders. Darwin’s passion for the birds influenced his 1868 book The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, which has not one but two chapters about pigeons (dogs and cats share a single chapter).
Nikola Tesla was another great mind who enjoyed pigeons. He used to care for injured wild pigeons in his New York City hotel room. Hands down, Tesla’s favorite was a white female—about whom he once said, “I loved that pigeon, I loved her as a man loves a woman and she loved me. When she was ill, I knew and understood; she came to my room and I stayed beside her for days. I nursed her back to health. That pigeon was the joy of my life. If she needed me, nothing else mattered. As long as I had her, there was a purpose in my life.” Reportedly, he was inconsolable after she died.
3. THEY UNDERSTAND SPACE AND TIME.
In a 2017 Current Biology study, researchers showed captive pigeons a series of digital lines on a computer screen for either two or eight seconds. Some lines were short, measuring about 2.3 inches across; others were four times longer. The pigeons were trained to evaluate either the length of the line or how long it was displayed. They found that the more time a line was displayed, the longer in length the pigeon judged it to be. The reverse was true too: If the pigeons encountered a longer line, they thought it existed in time for a greater duration. Pigeons, the scientists concluded, understand the concepts of both time and space; the researchers noted “similar results have been found with humans and other primates.”
It’s thought that humans process those concepts with a brain region called the parietal cortex; pigeon brains lack that cortex, so they must have a different way of judging space and time.
4. THEY CAN FIND THEIR WAY BACK TO THE NEST FROM 1300 MILES AWAY.
The birds can do this even if they’ve been transported in isolation—with no visual, olfactory, or magnetic clues—while scientists rotate their cages so they don’t know what direction they’re traveling in. How they do this is a mystery, but people have been exploiting the pigeon’s navigational skills since at least 3000 BCE, when ancient peoples would set caged pigeons free and follow them to nearby land.
Their navigational skills also make pigeons great long-distance messengers. Sports fans in ancient Greece are said to have used trained pigeons to carry the results of the Ancient Olympics. Further east, Genghis Khan stayed in touch with his allies and enemies alike through a pigeon-based postal network.
5. THEY SAVED THOUSANDS OF HUMAN LIVES DURING WORLD WARS I AND II.
Pigeons’ homing talents continued to shape history during the 20th century. In both World Wars, rival nations had huge flocks of pigeon messengers. (America alone had 200,000 at its disposal in WWII.) By delivering critical updates, the avians saved thousands of human lives. One racing bird named Cher Ami completed a mission that led to the rescue of 194 stranded U.S. soldiers on October 4, 1918.
6. TWO PIGEONS ALMOST DISTRACTED FROM THE DISCOVERY OF EVIDENCE OF THE BIG BANG.
In 1964, scientists in Holmdel, New Jersey, heard hissing noises from their antenna that would later prove to be signals from the Big Bang. But when they first heard the sound, they thought it might be, among other things, the poop of two pigeons that were living in the antenna. “We took the pigeons, put them in a box, and mailed them as far away as we could in the company mail to a guy who fancied pigeons,” one of the scientists later recalled. “He looked at them and said these are junk pigeons and let them go and before long they were right back.” But the scientists were able to clean out the antenna and determine that they had not been the cause of the noise. The trap used to catch the birds (before they had to later be, uh, permanently removed) is on view at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.
7. YOU CAN TRAIN THEM TO BE ART SNOBS …
Japanese psychologist Shigeru Watanabe and two colleagues earned an Ig Nobel Prize in 1995 for training pigeons, in a lab setting, to recognize the paintings of Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso and to distinguish between the painters. The pigeons were even able to use their knowledge of impressionism and cubism to identify paintings of other artists in those movements. Later, Watanabe taught other pigeons to distinguish watercolor images from pastels. And in a 2009 experiment, captive pigeons he’d borrowed were shown almost two dozen paintings made by students at a Tokyo elementary school, and were taught which ones were considered “good” and which ones were considered “bad.” He then presented them with 10 new paintings and the avian critics managed to correctly guess which ones had earned bad grades from the school’s teacher and a panel of adults. Watanabe’s findings indicate that wild pigeons naturally categorize things on the basis of color, texture, and general appearance.
8. … AND TO DISTINGUISH WRITTEN WORDS.
In a 2016 study, scientists showed that pigeons can differentiate between strings of letters and actual words. Four of the birds built up a vocabulary of between 26 and 58 written English words, and though the birds couldn’t actually read them, they could identify visual patterns and therefore tell them apart. The birds could even identify words they hadn’t seen before.
9. FLUFFY PIGEON FEET MIGHT ACTUALLY BE PARTIAL WINGS.
A few pigeon breeds have fuzzy legs—which hobbyists call “muffs”—rather than scaly ones. According to a 2016 study, the DNA of these fluffy-footed pigeons leads their hind legs to take on some forelimb characteristics, making muffed pigeon legs look distinctly wing-like; they’re also big-boned. Not only do they have feathers, but the hindlimbs are somewhat big-boned, too. According to biologist Mike Shapiro, who led the study, “pigeons’ fancy feathered feet are partially wings.”
10. SOME PIGEONS DISTRACT FALCONS WITH WHITE RUMP FEATHERS.
In a life-or-death situation, a pigeon’s survival could depend upon its color pattern: Research has shown that wild falcons rarely go after pigeons that have a white patch of feathers just above the tail, and when the predators do target these birds, the attacks are rarely successful.
To figure out why this is, Ph.D. student Alberto Palleroni and a team tagged 5235 pigeons in the vicinity of Davis, California. Then, they monitored 1485 falcon-on-pigeon attacks over a seven-year span. The researchers found that although white-rumped pigeons comprised 20 to 25 percent of the area’s pigeon population, they represented less than 2 percent of all the observed pigeons that were killed by falcons; the vast majority of the victims had blue rumps. Palleroni and his team rounded up 756 white- and blue-rumped pigeons and swapped their rump feathers by clipping and pasting white feathers on blue rumps, and vice versa. The falcons had a much easier time spotting and catching the newly blue-rumped pigeons, while the pigeons that received the white feathers saw predation rates plummet.
Close observation revealed that the white patches distract birds of prey. In the wild, falcons dive-bomb other winged animals from above at high speeds. Some pigeons respond by rolling away in midair, and on a spiraling bird, white rump feathers can be eye-catching, which means that a patch of them may divert a hungry raptor’s focus long enough to make the carnivore miscalculate and zip right past its intended victim.
11. DODOS WERE RELATED TO TODAY’S PIGEONS.
Though most of this list focuses on the rock pigeon, there are 308 living species of pigeons and doves. Together, they make up an order of birds known as the columbiformes. The extinct dodo belonged to this group as well.
Flightless and (somewhat) docile, dodos once inhabited Mauritius, an island near Madagascar. The species had no natural predators, but when human sailors arrived with rats, dogs, cats, and pigs, it began to die out, and before the 17th century came to a close, the dodo had vanished altogether. DNA testing has confirmed that pigeons are closely related to the dodo, and the vibrant Nicobar pigeon (above) is its nearest genetic relative. A multi-colored bird with iridescent feathers, this near-threatened creature is found on small islands in the South Pacific and off Asia. Unlike the dodo, it can fly.
12. AT ONE POINT, MORE THAN ONE-QUARTER OF ALL THE BIRDS LIVING IN THE U.S. MAY HAVE BEEN PASSENGER PIGEONS.
Wild/feral rock pigeons reside in all 50 states, which makes it easy to forget that they’re invasive birds. Originally native to Eurasia and northern Africa, the species was (most likely) introduced to North America by French settlers in 1606. At the time, a different kind of columbiform—this one indigenous—was already thriving there: the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius). As many as 5 billion of them were living in America when England, Spain, and France first started colonizing, and they may have once represented anywhere from 25 to 40 percent of the total U.S. bird population. But by the early 20th century, they had become a rare sight, thanks to overhunting, habitat loss, and a possible genetic diversity issue. The last known passenger pigeon—a captive female named Martha—died on September 1, 1914.
13. THEY’RE REALLY GOOD AT MULTITASKING.
According to one study, they’re more efficient multitaskers than people are. Scientists at Ruhr-Universitat Bochum put together a test group of 15 humans and 12 pigeons and trained all of them to complete two simple jobs (like pressing a keyboard once a light bulb came on). They were also put in situations wherein they’d need to stop working on one job and switch over to another. In some trials, the participants had to make the change immediately. During these test runs, humans and pigeons switched between jobs at the same speed.
But in other trials, the test subjects were allowed to complete one assignment and then had to wait 300 milliseconds before moving on to the next job. Interestingly, in these runs, the pigeons were quicker to get started on that second task after the period ended. In the avian brain, nerve cells are more densely packed, which might enable our feathered friends to process information faster than we can under the right circumstances.
14. PIGEONS PRODUCE FAKE “MILK.”
Only mammals produce genuine milk, but pigeons and doves (along with some other species of birds) feed their young with something similar—a whitish liquid filled with nutrients, fats, antioxidants, and healthy proteins called “crop milk.” Both male and female pigeons create the milk in the crop, a section of the esophagus designed to store food temporarily. As is the case with mammal milk, the creation of crop milk is regulated by the hormone prolactin. Newly-hatched pigeons drink crop milk until they’re weaned off it after four weeks or so. (And if you’ve ever asked yourself, “Where are all the baby pigeons?” we have the answer for you right here.)
15. ONE STUDY SUGGESTS THAT, GIVEN THE RIGHT CONDITIONS, THEY’RE AS GOOD AT IDENTIFYING CANCER AS DOCTORS.
We’ve already established that pigeons are excellent at differentiating between artists and words, but a 2015 study revealed they can also distinguish between malignant and benign growths in the right conditions. Researchers at University of California Davis Medical Center put 16 pigeons in a room with magnified biopsies of potential breast cancers. If the pigeons correctly identified them as either benign or malignant, they got a treat, According to Scientific American.
“Once trained, the pigeons’ average diagnostic accuracy reached an impressive 85 percent. But when a “flock sourcing” approach was taken, in which the most common answer among all subjects was used, group accuracy climbed to a staggering 99 percent, or what would be expected from a pathologist. The pigeons were also able to apply their knowledge to novel images, showing the findings weren’t simply a result of rote memorization.”
Mammograms proved to be more of a challenge, however; the birds could memorize signs of cancer in the images they were trained on but could not identify the signs in new images.
No matter how impressive their results, “I don’t anticipate that pigeons, no matter how good they become at pathology or radiology, will be playing a role in actual patient care—certainly for the foreseeable future,” study co-author Richard M. Levenson told Scientific American. “There are just too many regulatory barriers—at least in the West.”
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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 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 Roosting / 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
by Pigeon Patrol | Feb 22, 2022 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows, UltraSonic Bird Control
There are over sixty bacterial diseases, viruses, funguses and parasites associated with pigeons. The most problematic for humans would be Histoplasmosis and Cryptococcus. In addition there are: Trichomonisasis, Encephalitis, Meningitis, Pasteurellosis, Blastomycosis, Sarcosporidiosias, Toxoplasmosis, Candidiasis, Lisreiosis, Vibriosis, Salmonella and Paratyphoid. The National Institute of Health has reported a potentially blinding eye condition that probably results from the fungus. In some areas such as parts of Illinois, up to 80% of the population is reported to have been infected at some point.
According to the Washington State DFW, pigeons are excluded from the Migratory Bird Act:
Their nests, eggs, young, and/or adults may be removed or destroyed at any time. No permit is required.
And generally what you find about pigeons indicates they are most often treated as a pest and so you have exterminators and wildlife removal services dealing with them. Trapping is probably fine, but of course any type of shooting in an urban area will be a no-no.
Source\
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 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 Roosting / 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
by Pigeon Patrol | Feb 7, 2022 | Pigeon Predators, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows, UltraSonic Bird Control
A local wildlife organization is concerned about the number of sick pigeons it’s finding in Regina’s downtown.
Megan Lawrence, director of rehabilitation for Salthaven West, said her organization is frequently called for reports of pigeons in distress.
She said Salthaven has been dealing with the birds for years now and fears they might have been poisoned.
“On average we’re seeing a poisoned pigeon every two to three weeks,” she said, adding those numbers increase in the summer. “It’s not a very humane death. Their temperature skyrockets; it can be a very painful death.”
“By the time we receive them, they’re having violent seizures,” she said. “The only thing we can do to get rid of the poison in their system is basically flush it out.”
Lawrence said she’s heard that some businesses downtown may be using poison in order to detract the birds from congregating on rooftops and other roosting points on buildings. However, she wasn’t able to offer any proof for her claims or pinpoint specific businesses and said she hasn’t spoken to any business owners herself.
The Leader-Post contacted some downtown businesses to see how they control the pigeon population. None of the businesses who responded said they use poison or have had an issue with pigeon overpopulation.
Kevin Lang, building manager for the Ramada Plaza located on Victoria Avenue, said while he has inquired with pest control companies about using poison to stop pigeons from roosting on the hotel’s roof, he’s never used it.
“I’ve been told … it affects the other (types of) birds,” he said. “(If) you put poison out, it can be consumed by anything that lands on our roof, which is not environmentally friendly.”
Instead, the hotel uses cages to keep them out. He said without them, pigeons can get into ventilation equipment and leave feathers in the rooftop coils.
Lawrence said if pigeons ingest poison, they aren’t the only ones who suffer. Animals who eat pigeons could be affected.
“If a Peregrine falcon was to eat one of those pigeons that had ingested the poison, the falcon is also going to get the poison and perhaps die as well,” she said.
Half of the pigeons they receive, she said, end up dying.
Salthaven’s most recent call to assist a pigeon was Wednesday evening. That one ended up dying. The organization doesn’t usually have pigeons tested to see what specific poison is making them sick, but it’s considering sending that one in for testing.
Lawrence believes the pigeons may be ingesting Avitrol, a bird control product she said is used in cities across Canada.
“It’s very common … to control pigeon populations this way,” she said. “It’s likely (because) it’s cheap and easy.”
In an email, the City of Regina said it doesn’t have a pigeon control program and doesn’t monitor pigeon populations.
On its website, the makers of Avitrol say the product “causes behaviours similar to an epileptic seizure.”
“Birds eating the treated bait will emit distress signals used by their species when they are frightened or injured,” the website says. “This will frighten the flock and cause it to leave the site.”
Several Regina pest control companies contacted by the Leader-Post said they do offer Avitrol, but it can only be administered in commercial and industrial areas and isn’t for retail sale. A trained pest control employee must administer it.
Instead of poison, Lawrence recommends removing structures where pigeons could roost and screen off air conditioning units where they might drink water from. Bristling wires, which prevent pigeons from landing, can also be purchased from a pest control retailer and installed.
“If they’re up on the roof and you start seeing them build nest, remove all nesting materials,” she said. “The more times that happens they’re going to realize this isn’t a place (they can) nest.”
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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 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 Roosting / 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
by Pigeon Patrol | Feb 7, 2022 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Predators, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows
Where do you go for your daily headlines? Your stock prices? Certainly not your neighborhood pigeons.
Thomson Reuters, also known as The Answer Company, is the world’s largest provider of news and information to businesses and professionals. As early as the 1850s, they were sending news of bond prices across the English Channel on carrier pigeons.
Lincoln’s assassination was first reported into Europe by Baron Reuter, and he did it by sending fishing ships out to catch the steamers as they were coming across the Atlantic and getting back first. So being first, and being fast is paramount to Thomson Reuters, and it has been since day one.
Though much has changed and evolved since the days of its first office in the city of London where they transmitted share price quotes to Paris via the new Dover-Calais telegraph cable, what hasn’t changed is the responsibility to supply mission-critical news to businesses around the world.
With the rapid rise in digital advancements, what has changed, is the vast amount of information to manage. Professionals are consuming the news via mobile apps on various devices, portfolio management is influenced by headlines, and machines can be programmed to perform trades based upon market fluctuations. Getting it first is vitally important in the news business. Thomson Reuters leans on speed to meet the needs of today’s digital customers. Rapidity and accuracy is a duty its customers count upon them to fulfill; a duty they take seriously.
News Travels Fast
Using SAP HANA, they’ve been able to double the speed at which they can ingest polling data and get more than a tenfold increase in the way they analyze that data. Running live on SAP allows them to do what used to take days, and do it almost instantaneously.
A good example of this is the Polling Explorer. As you can imagine, the use of the polling explorer was widespread during the 2016 pre-elections. Today, Thomson Reuters’ polling data is easily interrogated. Back in the early eighties however, polling data meant a big book of data that landed on your desk with a thud, and this would be only the highlight results. If you really wanted to analyze that data, you would have to ask for cross-tabs to be created. It would take hours, if not days, to analyze what-ifs. With today’s level of data interactivity, running SAP HANA means getting a live data experience.
Source
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 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 Roosting / 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
by Pigeon Patrol | Feb 7, 2022 | Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows, UltraSonic Bird Control
A Toronto resident recorded a video of a man snatching pigeons in the city’s east end and when she tried to report it to officials, she said no one wanted to investigate.
On Sunday morning, Bruna Doberstein was on her way home when she witnessed a man and a child capturing the birds with a net and placing them inside a crowded cage in a parking lot at Lawrence Avenue East and Markham Road. That’s when she decided to take out her phone and start recording.
“I expected he would stop doing it after he saw that I was recording. But he didn’t. He seemed pretty comfortable doing it,” Doberstein told CityNews.
In the video, you can hear Doberstein asking the man why he was trapping the pigeons and that he “can’t do this,” in which he responds “Yes I can. I take them to my farm and I raise them.”
Doberstein said she didn’t buy it.
“He wasn’t being gentle. He was holding the birds by their wings. A person who would raise the birds would be at least careful and keep them safe” she said. “I don’t know the story but I know it’s not good.”
At that moment, Doberstein decided to call the police. She said that while the officer was courteous, she was told that it wasn’t their jurisdiction and they wouldn’t be sending an officer.
Instead they told her to call 311. But she said from past experience, Doberstein didn’t think they would be of any help in this matter.
This wasn’t the first time she witnessed the man capturing a cage full of birds and it also wasn’t the first time she tried reporting on what she witnessed.
“It was the second time I saw this guy. I recognized the truck from almost a year ago in August in the same parking lot.”
She told CityNews that last year she contacted a variety of different municipal and provincial departments with no luck, “I called PAWS (Provincial Animal Welfares services) and The Ministry of Nature and Forestry too and I never heard back.”
This kind of response isn’t unusual, according to Camille Labchuck, animal rights lawyer and executive director of Animal Justice.
“In my experience this is not uncommon when it comes to animal issues and law enforcement agencies,” said Labchuck. “Because a lot of people have authority also means that nobody does, leading to nobody wanting to pick it up and run with it.”
While Labchuck and her team are disappointed that Toronto Animal Services and police didn’t do more, they ultimately had more success with reporting the incident to Provincial Animal Welfare Services and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.
“PAWS is the agency that took over enforcement from the OSPCA two years back. They are tasked with investigating any animal cruelty problems.” Labchuck explained. Something many people may not be aware of.
Since the OSPCA announced in 2019 it will no longer enforce animal cruelty laws, there has been no clear guidance of who one should contact to report, investigate and enforce animal cruelty laws.
“You got a man roughly handling birds by the wings which is not permitted,” Labchuck said. “To say nothing of the fact that he shouldn’t be interacting with pigeons anyways. They are protected species under the federal Migratory Bird Convention Act”.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry are in charge of enforcing the wildlife act. Labchuck said there could be a clear violation here as residents can’t interact with native wildlife without a permit.
However, while both departments took down information, neither would accept the video at this stage.
“They both advised that providing the video would be a next step if an enforcement officer requires it. Kind of bizarre as it’s relevant evidence at the outset,” Labchuck said.
In 2015, the illegal trapping of pigeons became a widespread issue in the city of New York after hundreds were believed to be stolen for live pigeon shoots in neighbouring states.
Source
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 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 Roosting / 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
