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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A buyer has bid more than $1.4 million for a champion Belgian racing pigeon in a sale, according to the auction house Pipa, which oversaw the online auction for the rare bird.
This regal, emerald green-feathered bird is no regular pigeon you would frequent on the street — as you probably imagined.
In fact, lest you underestimate the athleticism of the mighty bird named “Armando,” look no further than this endorsement.
Nikolaas Gyselbrecht, the founder and chief executive of Pipa, told the Press Association: “This pigeon has a race record that has never been matched by any other pigeon.”
“In football terms you have Messi and Ronaldo – it’s that level.”
The praise for “Armando” continued from there.
PIPA
“This is a crowning glory of all those years in the pigeon sport. The icing on the cake,” Joël Verschoot said of the unique bird he put up for auction, according to the Guardian.
Indeed, Armando is apparently a champ who really goes the distance.
As to why a bird fetched such a high price, it comes down to Armando’s particular knack for the long-distance competition in China, where bird racing is a popular draw.
Bird owners can win plenty of their money back by betting on the correct winged competitor, with prizes in the tens of thousands of dollars.
That being said, your typical racer bird fetches $2,838, according to the BBC.
“This type of champion is rarely offered for sale,” according to the auction site. The high price leapt from $600,000 to $1.4 million in the final moments of bidding, according to the auction site, which features a close-up snapshot of the bird’s eye for reasons unknown.
Go Armando.
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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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Scotland’s health secretary has said she believes infection control is good enough at a hospital where two patients died after contracting an infection linked to pigeon droppings.
Jeane Freeman has ordered a review of the design, build, handover and maintenance of the flagship £842 million Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow as investigations continue.
The Cryptococcus bacteria, a fungal infection linked to pigeon droppings and soil, was found to be a contributory factor in the death of a child, while a second patient was also found to have an infection caused by inhaling the fungus Cryptococcus, although the health secretary has said it did not contribute to their death.
Pigeon droppings found in a plant room on the hospital’s roof are believed to be the source of the problem and investigations are continuing to establish how the bacteria entered a closed ventilation system.
The issue comes after problems with bacteria in the water supply at the adjoining Royal Hospital for Children last year which led to child cancer patients being moved.
In an interview on BBC Good Morning Scotland, Ms Freeman was asked: ‘Do you believe infection control is good enough at this hospital?’
She replied: ‘Yes I do. Yes I do and I think the statistics show that. The overall infection rate in the Queen Elizabeth is 4 per cent, the average across Scotland is 4.9 per cent. It is at least on par with all the other hospitals across Scotland and in fact doing a bit better.
‘But infection happens in hospitals. That’s why we have the Scottish Patient Safety Programme that has significantly reduced infection rates across our hospitals and healthcare settings over the last 10 years or so.
‘What you need to be able to do though is have those additional infection control measures to put in place as they have done at the Queen Elizabeth, with the HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filters, with the anti-fungal protection for particularly vulnerable patients in the area where the Crypotoccocus infection was discovered.’
Ms Freeman said she hopes to announce the remit of the review by the end of the week.
She could not give a timescale for how long the review will take and said that while she wants it to reach its conclusions and recommendations as quickly as possible, it needs to take long enough to ensure it is ‘robust’.
She said: ‘There have been a number of instances where parts of the building, the fabric of the building, have been less than we would want it to be.
‘Some of those don’t directly affect patients but obviously our primary concern is that this building is, in its fabric, in its internal infrastructure, is absolutely fit for purpose, so that is why I’ve ordered the review and made sure that we will have independent expert advice to that review.
‘It will look at everything from the design, the construction, the commissioning and the continuing maintenance to try and identify what more might need to be done to ensure that the building is fit for purpose, but also whether there are any particular lessons for us as we go on to instigate other builds of healthcare facilities across Scotland.
‘The review of the Queen Elizabeth will have significant importance for all the new build that we’re undertaking.’
Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Monica Lennon said: ‘The Health Secretary says infection rates are on a par with other hospitals in Scotland but this is supposed to be a world-leading hospital.
‘The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital was an £842 million investment by the Government – the fact we are now having a review into its infrastructure suggests something has gone very wrong.
‘The review must answer honest questions about what has gone wrong here.’
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What do you do when birds poop all over your property?
If you’re TransLink, you send in a falcon.
In an effort to deal with pigeons nesting at the Commercial-Broadway skytrain station, TransLink is using a bird, to flip off other birds.
A Bird Poop Problem
A new platform for the station, set to open February 2nd, will allow commuters to enter westbound from both sides.
The company was hoping the amount of noise made by the skytrain and commuters would shake off the birds, but hasn’t so far.
With the threat of bird poop being a real concern for TransLink, the company decided to bring in a falcon.
Jill Drews, Senior Issues Management Advisor for TransLink says, “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.”
But there’s more.
In addition to the falcon, Drews says electric strips, that cause a “very,very minor” shock will also be brought in. “It won’t harm the birds. But it’s just irritating so it will hopefully deter them from nesting,” she says.
Spikes and netting will also by installed in an effort to stop the birds from landing.
The pigeons in question could not be reached for a comment.
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.
