by Ryan Ponto | Feb 5, 2017 | Animal Deterrent Products
The fate of Abbotsford’s urban pigeon prohibition is still unclear after council received a report last week that noted the bird ban aligns with the city’s current zoning bylaw, but that those regulations are currently under review.
The issue was raised last fall by Gurbir Brar, who raises pigeons and says the bylaw banning them is irrational and unnecessary.
Brar told council in October that other jurisdictions, including Calgary and Surrey, allow the keeping of hobby pigeons in residential areas, without a problem. He compared pigeons to cats, and said the birds – when properly trained – are much less disruptive than felines to the surrounding community. He was accompanied by more than a dozen fellow pigeon fanciers.
Staff were directed to prepare a report, which was presented to council last week.
In it, assistant planner Nick Crosman notes that pigeons are currently defined as poultry, rather than pets, and thereby are an agriculture use. Currently, residential zones don’t permit such uses.
But the city’s zoning bylaw is currently undergoing a revision to align it with the 2016 Official Community Plan. That document would seem to be more friendlier to pigeon-rearing, and includes a statement that suggests council consider allowing “urban agriculture activities that encourage self-sufficiency.” Pigeons and backyard fowl aren’t mentioned in the OCP.
The updated zoning bylaw will come to council for approval or revision. Any changes would require a public hearing.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by Ryan Ponto | Jan 24, 2017 | Animal Deterrent Products
The universal acclaim that greeted Planet Earth II shows that people still love watching nature documentaries. Optimists would see this as a sign that we still care about the environment. I am not so sure.
As a child, I watched nature documentaries to actually learn about the natural world. Now, people watch nature documentaries for their graphic violence and sexual content. Having lived in the 21st century for almost seventeen years, their minds now respond to little else.
Like everyone else, I was deeply saddened to see the end of Planet Earth II. Sex and violence abounded. I’ve never liked wasps, since one stung me on the ankle for absolutely no reason as a boy, and I like to see frogs do well, so what better way to spend a Sunday evening than watching a frog repeatedly kick a wasp in the eye? Few moments in modern British television have equalled the sight of the mighty snow leopard, wandering around the Himalayas, occasionally urinating alluringly on a rock.
The last episode of the series went into our cities. Pigeons were treated badly, being eaten by both peregrine falcons and immigrant fish. Monkeys did well; in one city in India they have convinced the locals that they are gods, and now abuse the humans’ goodwill, running around completely naked and demanding food.
The urban slant to this episode did however get me thinking about the animals that can be found in Oxford—and I’m not talking about the freshers! Most Oxford students are disgustingly self-centred, not only do they never take the time to appreciate the animal kingdom—the dissolute life they lead even has a harmful effect on animal life.
Instead of just looking at the nice river, they insist on rowing on it, killing innocent fish with every oar stroke. Instead of walking around the nice meadow, they must run around it in tight sportswear, every other step crushing a duck’s windpipe. Instead of just going to the nice nightclub and listening to the music, they insist on taking ketamine—thereby depriving horses of much-needed stress relief in the modern business environment.
In my one and a half years at Oxford, I have come to appreciate the amazing wealth and diversity of wildlife in Oxford, and I now take almost as much pleasure in looking at animals in real life, as I do from memes. Oxford’s animals have evolved over time to take advantage of the city’s scholastic environment.
In my first term at Oxford I was surprised to stumble upon a reading group for Marxist pigeons, convened in the bird pond outside my building. Magdalen College was originally set up to that local aristocratic families could provide an education for their deer herds, but after the publication of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, which warned all landowners of the dangers of talking animals, an age-old tradition was ceased.
Now the deer must make do with the occasional piece of cheap airport literature thrown into their paddock by ‘allied’ students.
I could go on enumerating the many wonders of Oxford’s animal scene: the feminist rats, the techno cattle, even the queer squirrels. I have learnt however in my time at Oxford that most students are simply not interested in the benefits that quiet contemplation of nature can bring. Nature is only of interest to them when it appears mediated by a television screen and David Attenborough’s rasping death rattle.
Compared to the glamourous lives of the animals we see in Planet Earth, it is easy to wrongly believe that Oxford’s non-human inhabitants are boring creatures. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The animals that David Attenborough presents to us are horrible show-offs, whereas the rats and pigeons of Oxford retain a modicum of traditional British reticence.
Your average black rat is perfectly capable of hunting giraffes in the desert, or of catching a fish for its wife and family in the waters of the Antarctic. It chooses not to however out of its natural modesty.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by Ryan Ponto | Jan 13, 2017 | Animal Deterrent Products
TOWN bells have historically been a part of our culture as one of the earliest ways to call people together or warn of imminent danger.
Before the advent of telephones and social media, the bells would call us to work, prayer and sound out celebrations for special events.
Even when the telephone took over as the first means of spreading information, the bells helped everyone keep time, and ensured a town ran smoothly.
As such it was an important job and it lay with the timekeeper.
Fifty years ago in Haddington, that job fell to 62-year-old William Barber, who, reported the Haddingtonshire Courier in 1967, was facing a particular problem with lazy pigeons.
The town clock, often relied on by the townsfolk, was being knocked out of time by pigeons who apparently had taken to resting on its hands.
Mr Barber revealed that their favourite resting place had become a problem.
He said: “Often a pigeon will land on a hand which is going down and the weight of the bird will make the clock go fast, but if the pigeon is sitting on the hand while it is going up, it will more than likely stop the clock altogether.”
Haddington Town Council’s attempts to deter the pigeons saw netting introduced to try and keep them away, but it quickly deteriorated as the pigeons used it for nests.
Mr Barber must have seen it all in his years as the official timekeeper of the town clock.
At the age of 62, he had climbed the steep stone stairs into the steeple every week for 27 years to wind up the weights which drove the hands, correct the faces and clean any obstructions.
He took over the mantle from his predecessor James Pringle, a well-known Haddington watchmaker and jeweller, when he retired, having studied at his side for a number of years, learning all the old clock’s idiosyncrasies.
The Town House, from which the clock tower rises, was built in 1748 and designed by William Adams. The steeple itself was added in 1830 and designed by Gillespie and Graham. As late as 1967, it involved some heavy work to keep the clock in check.
Working on the same principle as a grandfather clock, the weights were suspended on steel hawsers and winding them up was not as simple as turning a handle. Instead, they used machinery adapted from agriculture to move them.
And the clock itself had its own clock – a small electric one which controlled when the faces of the larger clock were lit up.
Mr Barber revealed that pigeons were far from the only problems faced as he tried to keep time for the town.
He said: “The clock is not terribly accurate but it is unusual in that it strikes the quarter, half and hour. There are not so many town clocks that do this. Besides the pigeons, there are many other factors which dictate whether the clock goes fast or slow. The weather can affect the clock badly. Quite often snow or ice sticks to the face and stops the hands from going round.”
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by Ryan Ponto | Jan 9, 2017 | Animal Deterrent Products
Faunal extinctions are calamitous events. There is something tremendously unsettling about the passing of a species into oblivion, especially if there are local implications.
Such was the case with regard to the passenger pigeon, which officially became extinct a century ago. Historically, the bird was a prominent part of Ontario’s avifauna. Anecdotal evidence confirms it occurred in Ontario in enormous numbers.
Accounts of its historical abundance defy belief. In the 1840s, it comprised fully 40 per cent of the entire total bird population of North America. It bred in 45 of Ontario’s 55 counties, often at communal rookeries comprising tens of thousands of nests.
There is astonishing eyewitness evidence of its staggering numbers.
“A grand migration of passenger pigeons (took place at Niagara-on-the-Lake) including a flock one-mile wide and 300 miles long … that took 14 hours to pass by,” reported a soldier at Fort Mississauga in 1860.
In 1832, flocks of passenger pigeons migrated over Toronto for four consecutive days and Royal Ontario Museum records indicate the smallest of the flocks comprised 500-600 individual pigeons.
According to C.J.S. Bethune, in 1858 he encountered a 10-acre stubble field “literally blue with pigeons so thick that one could hardly see the ground.”
A huge pigeon rookery along both sides of the Speed River, from Guelph to Rockton, in 1835 had so many pigeons that “trees were broken down by the weight of the pigeons … (and) wagonloads were shot for food,” a local historian confirmed.
In addition to several rookeries in Oro-Medonte, a profusion of reports illustrate immense flocks at Blyth, Huron County, at Goderich, at Sunnidale, Simcoe County and in Guelph.
At Clearview, near Lake Huron, “vast clouds that darkened the sun” were reported in the mid-1850s. In 1870, pigeons were so plentiful that one market gunner reported he shot “400 before 10 a.m.”
Apparently, people back then thought the pigeon population was inexhaustible. According to researcher P.H. Ehrlich, “the birds were netted, baited with salt, shot at nests, clubbed, live-trapped and later shot in competitions … pigeons were sold for food for 50 cents per barrel.”
One market gunner reported he shot three million pigeons over a 30-year period. In 1878, at a Michigan pigeon rookery, 50,000 were shot each day for almost five months, according to Pete Petosky a former Michigan Department of Natural Resources official.
Eventually, the pigeons could not withstand the relentless slaughter.
The last surviving rookery in Ontario was confirmed near Kingston in 1898 (20 birds and 12 nests). Two specimens were collected at Toronto in 1890 and the last confirmed Ontario specimen was shot by Otto Reinecke near Niagara Falls in September 1891.
The last wild adult in North America was shot in Illinois on March 12, 1901.
Three captive passenger pigeons survived in the Cincinnati Zoo a few years later: one died in April 1909, another in July 1910 and the last living passenger pigeon (Martha) died on Sept. 1, 1914.
All that remain of the billions of passenger pigeons that once darkened the skies over North America are 1,535 skins and 16 skeletons.
Passenger pigeons were about 15 inches long. They fed on fruit, nuts, berries and seeds. Scientists think it might be possible to re-create the species using advanced DNA technology.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by Ryan Ponto | Jan 1, 2017 | Animal Deterrent Products
Incoming US President Donald Trump threw a cat among the European pigeons this week after he said that the EU was heading for breakup and that he didn’t care much if that were to happen.
In interviews with British and German newspapers, Trump said a whole lot more too. He described Britain’s decision to split from the EU as a “great” move, and that more countries would follow the Brexit; he called German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door immigration policy a “disaster”; and on the NATO military alliance, the new president said it was “obsolete”.
The following day, EU leaders were huffing and puffing with rage and exasperation that Trump should dare be so disrespectful.
“Trump’s NATO, EU comments spark fury, fear across Europe,” reported the Washington Times.
Germany’s Merkel and French President Francois Hollande told Trump to mind his own business. EU foreign policy chief Federica Morgherini claimed that European states followed their own independent course and did not need Washington anyway. Former French prime minister Manuel Valls, always prone to histrionics, even went as far as decrying Trump for “declaring war on Europe”.
The hilarious thing is that Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, and the EU leaders have been for months claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin is the one who is secretly plotting the breakup of the European bloc and the transatlantic alliance.
But after all this rabid scaremongering against Russia, it is an American president, Donald Trump, who is publicly declaring that the days are numbered for the transatlantic status quo.
Russia did indeed welcome Trump’s comments about NATO being “obsolete”. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “NATO is truly a relic of the past… its entire structure is dedicated to the idea of confrontation; of course, it can hardly be called a modern structure that meets the ideas of stability, sustainable development and security.”
Moscow also said that it welcomed the opportunity to normalize relations with Washington as Trump has indicated. He has intimated that he is prepared to lift economic sanctions that Washington imposed on Russia since 2014 over the Ukraine conflict.
Despite their pretentious bluster, the truth is that European leaders of all political shades have been absolute lackeys to Washington for the past several decades. Not one European state has dared to stand up to American foreign policy misconduct.
In reaction to Trump’s latest broadsides, European leaders are piously claiming to be independent from Washington. Nothing could be further from the truth about the current and past crop of European politicians.
Germany’s deputy Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel hit back at Trump’s savaging of Merkel’s “disastrous” immigration policies. He said that the real cause of the refugee crisis in Europe was America’s military interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia. Well, yes, that is true. But if Sigmar Gabriel knew that was the real cause, then why hasn’t Germany – the most powerful EU member – stood up to Washington to oppose its relentless warmongering.
The fact is that the EU has gone along with each and every US-led war around the world over the past 25 years. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya among others.
Look at Syria, for instance. The EU has imposed economic sanctions on that forsaken country, in line with Washington’s agenda for regime change, thus exacerbating the exodus of refugees. If the EU had some independent backbone, as it likes to pretend, then it should have firmly opposed the US-led covert intervention in Syria. But it didn’t. The EU is fully complicit.
The pernicious role of Britain has to be acknowledged here. No other member of the EU has been such an avid cheerleader for NATO and American atlanticist sway over European affairs. Britain has loyally followed the US into foreign wars, thereby dragging Europe into such follies. If Britain had not been a member of the EU, perhaps the bloc might have had more critical foreign policy, one that was more critical of Washington’s lawless depredations.
Ironically now, Britain is leaving the EU after 43 years of membership. But it bequeaths a legacy of subservience to Washington that all remaining EU members find themselves bound by.
Perhaps the clearest example of European servility to US foreign policy is its acquiescence to Russophobia and the hostile expansion of US-led military forces along Russia’s borders.
European governments have colluded with Washington to meddle in the affairs of Georgia and Ukraine and then seek to cover up the tracks of conflict by blaming Russia for the unrest. Moreover, the EU slavishly followed Washington’s lead to slap economic sanctions on Russia. Those sanctions have caused minimal disruption to America’s economy, but they have wreaked havoc on European farmers, workers and businesses.
The incumbent European governments are pathetic. Special mention must be given to French President Hollande, the most unpopular leader ever. To illustrate the puppet status, recall the Mistral helicopter-ship deal worth about $2 billion with Russia. Hollande axed the contract and hence hundreds of French jobs because the Americans instructed him to do so, allegedly to maintain a unified sanctions policy on Moscow.
Europe is facing several key national elections this year, in the Netherlands, France and Germany. As with other EU countries there is a popular revolt against the status quo. The mainstream media paint the opposition parties as extremist and racist. The media also claim that Russia is covertly subverting European democracies. This is just scapegoating. Closer to the truth is that ordinary EU citizens are fed up with governments that are in hock to a foreign power – Washington.
The atlanticist “alliance” has been nothing but a euphemism for Washington to dominate politically, financially and militarily over Europe. To the point where Europe has trashed its historic links and natural relations with Russia.
After decades of kowtowing to Washington, there is now a new US president who is snubbing the “loyal Europeans” and showing disregard for atlanticism.
Trump’s comment that he trusts Vladimir Putin equally with Angela Merkel is surely a sharp putdown to Europeans who have allowed his predecessors to dictate disastrous policies for the EU.
Under Trump, the US may well move to cancel its sanctions on Russia. What will European lackeys do then? Keep their own futile anti-Russian sanctions that are wrecking their economies, or sheepishly repeal the sanctions because the Americans have done so?
But by then it will be too late for the EU. The European Union is already teetering on implosion because for decades its leaders had no courage or vision to serve the interests of their citizens instead of Uncle Sam’s atlanticist designs.
Trump’s indifference towards European subservience and the NATO project is a potentially promising new direction to a more balanced international configuration, especially with regard to restoring relations with Russia.
It may not work out, of course. Trump has plenty of enemies at home among the Washington establishment who see atlanticist domination of Europe and antagonism towards Russia as a cornerstone of US global hegemonic ambitions.
Nevertheless, Trump’s skepticism towards the EU and NATO is setting the cat among the European pigeons. Because it is exposing them as impotent flunkies who have ruined their countries by prostrating themselves as pathetic dependents on American patronage.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by Ryan Ponto | Dec 27, 2016 | Animal Deterrent Products
Chennai: Being a resident of Chennai, one knows very well about the thousands of pigeons that are being fed every day at the Marina beach.
It is a humane initiative by a Rajasthani family that shows its benevolence towards every living being on the planet. Standing there amid the thousands of birds is surreal. It is a photographer’s paradise and a magical experience for every child.
But you don’t have to trek all the way to Marina for this experience. On the small terrace on top of a serene apartment at Ramasamy Salai, K K Nagar, Ashok nagar, Chennai, K Harish Kumar feeds hundreds of wild pigeons every morning. The reason, he says, is that it simply makes him happy and the rest of his day is made.
Harish has been a resident of K K Nagar for the past 40 years. As a landscape consultant by profession, he is an admirer of nature and every living being on earth. His ideas, such as the ‘Birthday Trees’, wherein a person would plant a tree every birthday, was a way to help and care for nature.
While commuting to places, he always carries a packet of biscuits for his four-legged ‘friends’ on the streets. “There isn’t a street that is without dogs that come to play with me and expect the biscuits I have in the bike,” smiles Harish.
What started as a handful of wheat for a couple of pigeons, which sat on his balcony, has now became several kilograms of wheat for almost 500 pigeons every day. During his childhood days, Harish raised pigeons, which made him very fond of them.
Even though he is unable to create a loft and have homing pigeons on his own, he is more than happy just to feed feral pigeons (Columba livia) that come to his terrace. “It gives me peace when I see about 500 pigeons fly around the terrace and have their fill,” he reminisced.
He has been observing their flying pattern and behaviour even as he feeds them. On the day Cyclone Vardah hit Chennai, the pigeons cramped together in any crevice they could find. And when the rain and wind stopped for a while, the birds flew haphazardly, unlike the synchronised flying formation they indulge in on normal days. This, he says, is because of the tremendous stress the birds underwent during the storm.
Almost 10 kg of wheat is used on a single day. Harish, who gets the grains by spending from his own pocket, says that he has been buying around 300 kg of wheat every month. “Nothing goes waste. Every grain is polished off by the pigeons,” laughs Harish.
A pitcher of water is regularly filled several times in a day, which is actually a birdbath.
Along with his spouse, Harish hopes to never let any animal, bird or plant go without proper love and care. Any injured or sick animal is given asylum in his house and he takes care till they are cured.
He jests, “The only drawback of 500 pigeons eating 10 kg of wheat every day is the menace they are to the neighbour’s cars!”
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
