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Feral Pigeons  We are often shocked and saddened at the plight of feral pigeons often being killed en mass. It would seem that more often than not that the problem is actually human in origin. Some councils show a good duty of care in such matters and use a variety of signs telling people not to feed pigeons or drop food around. Pigeons breed in response to food availability, and in many cities there's usually a lot of food (take aways, chips etc) just flung on the pavement. Children should be taught right from school that dropping food not only upsets the council and the community making the cities filthy, but it also upsets the balance of nature, leading to a lot of misery for animals and birds.
It would onlyract from the character and heritage of towns if pigeons were more or less effaced from the streets, we should always at exploer every other avenue of controp before ever contemplatin a cull. Image right: Pigeons & Doves were among the creatures St Francis loved Some people in positions of responsibility have been callously calling pigeons “airborne rats” and while you have this you will also have those who will gladly resort to barbaric measures to control them. If rather than addressing our own food disposal problems responsibly and we opt for killing thousands of pigeons from our cities then we will have plagues of rats come in to feed on the scraps littering the pavements, and theses carry far more diseases than pigeons. Many people may not be aware of the significant role that pigeons played in the Ist and 2nd world wars. 32 of them received "The Dickin medal of Gallantry" carrying messages across enemy lines from commados and the resistance, and their exploits actually outnumber acts of gallantry by dogs and horses, and it was a pigeon which was the first creature to win that medal. We can thank the pigeon in some measure then that the Nazis were prevented from invading our country. "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
YouTube Video Photo of Pigeon William of Orange, won “The Dickin Medal of Gallantry” in 1945 |
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A form of feral pigeon control recorded as having some success is seed and food baited with
avian contraceptives and where appropriate dummy egg nesting can be undertaken by locating where the pigeons are nesting, removing their eggs and replacing them with dummy ones, all these and many more alternatives could be tried, in addition to food deprivation.
"Our task must be to free ourselves . . . by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty." "Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel Prize 1921
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