Hollywood pigeons on the pill??
I'm really surprised PETA came up with this idea!! >:(
IMO, chemically treating an animal is not exactly "ethical" even if it's "just" a BC pill.
I understand that they were going for the best of bad solutions but still... eww...
-Jennifer
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070730/ap_on_re_us/hollywood_pigeons
LOS ANGELES - Hollywood residents believe they've found a humane way to reduce their pigeon population and the messes the birds make: the pill.
Over the next few months a birth control product called OvoControl P, which interferes with egg development, will be placed in bird food in new rooftop feeders.
"We think we've got a good solution to a bad situation," said Laura Dodson, president of the Argyle Civic Association, the group leading the effort to try the new contraceptive. "The poop problem has become unmanageable and this could be the answer."
Community leaders planned to announce the OvoControl P pilot program, which Dodson believes is the first of its kind in the nation, at a news conference Monday.
Dodson said representatives from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals contacted her group with the idea to use OvoControl P. Other animal rights groups, including the Humane Society of the United States, support the contraceptive over electric shock gates, spiked rooftops, poisons or other methods.
It's estimated about 5,000 pigeons call the area home. Their population boom is blamed in part on people feeding the birds, including a woman known as the Bird Lady, who was responsible for dumping 25-pound bags of seed in 29 spots around Hollywood.
OvoControl P has been registered with the state Department of Pesticide Regulation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Developed by Rancho Santa Fe-based Innolytics, the substance contains nicarbazin, which interferes with an egg's ability to develop or hatch, said Erick Wolf, Innolytics chief executive.
The pilot program was expected to show results within a year, and the Hollywood area's pigeon population is expected to shrink by at least half by 2012, Dodson said.
They've been doing this in Paris and Rome for several years now. It may not be ethical, but it IS preferable to our condo gardener's solution: shooting the pigeons with a BB gun and leaving them to die slowly. I have had/seen dying and dead pigeons in the palm tree outside my window, on my windowsill, on the pavements in little pools of blood...I tried to speak to the res ass prez (pun intended) and I got: Pigeons are vermin, they're like rats with wings, they're filthy and spread disease.
Which may be, but surely they could be trapped humanely and removed?
The worst of it is, the pigeons are the leavings of an elderly neighbour's dovecote. When he died, his son simply opened the cote and chased the birds out, then tore down the dovecote. So the pigeons technically don't "belong" to anyone, and are seen as fair game and a nuisance. WHY the son wasn't fined for "littering" or whatever, I don't know.
I wasn't really sure how I felt about this when I read the article. makes me think of seagulls at the shore, or Canadian Geese at the park near my house. I think the problem is the same as the one with stray cats, well meaning people feed these wild animals, or else not so well meaning people leave their garabagge for the animals to get & the populations get too big. My college campus used to soot fireworks to get the geese to leave. I have also seen trucks advertising that they humanely remove geese, I think they are called the geese police or something, but I'm not sure where they release them after trapping. Anyway, I think the only way properly control these poplulations is to stop making human food so readily acessable, maybe enforce a fine for feeding them?
I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I can see why PETA recommended the pill if the other options included shock gates and poisoning. I don't see how it's going to work if there are people who put out feed. If the local population decreases, that leaves space for other pigeons to move in and eat the feed. Maybe there's something I'm missing.
Well, I suppose it's FAR better than killing the pigeons, which unfortunately many city governments feel is "necessary". I am wondering what will happen to all of the eggs that won't develop. Won't they end up with a serious rotten egg problem on their hands? In my experience, birds will sit on their eggs regardless of whether or not they're going to hatch. . . that combined with sunny CA weather should yield a really pleasant smell after a month or two. ;)
I rather like pigeons. I've rescued and released four now (over a period of several years) that had various injuries due to cars (although one I suspect was caught and roughed up by a cat or dog).
This is similar to neuter programs for feral cats, isn't it? I wouldn't kill one, but pigeons are pretty nasty. I'm in NYC, and they may seem OK in the park and on the street, but it's a very different story when they're laying eggs on your windowsill. I've had it happend a couple of times...and I was all excited, until I had to clean up the mess after the baby birds left the nest. The next time it happened, one of the babies died...and I had to clean it up. Yuk.
I was thinking it did sound similar to spay/neuter programs as Operchic mentioned above. Maybe it just seems odd because it's a form of animal control we are unfamiliar with--I agree tampering with animals is not the best solution--but killing them is worse! I guess we can only wait and see how this affects the birds--hopefully it will only curb their population and not harm them!
Most birds will sit on their eggs and sit and sit and SIT! If it is a pill that is keeping them from developing and hatching in the first place, the hen sitting tight will further produce a contraceptive effect. When a hen has eggs, she is rather disinclined to mate and will sit as opposed to shaking her tail and bending over for a male. It means she won't even attempt the 4 or 5 clutches a year the pigeons in California produce.
I'd love to see something done for the Canadian geese problem. They have out competed the native western US duck population to the point where you don't see ANY these days. In Wyoming where we visit frequently, they do have native ducks and almost no Canadian geese, interestingly enough. I saw a pair of pelicans and a crane at the lake a couple of weekends ago.
I think this is bizarre, honestly. And I think it will have potential consequences that are far reaching. I agree in that too much of one species will disrupt the ecosystem, damaging it in negative ways.
But, introducing hormones into a bird also means introducing that hormone into the entire ecosystem. I'm not sure that's such a good idea.
On the other hand, I have no other solution for problems such as these. Capture and release will only work so far. And you have to be careful with this as there is the potential of disrupting yet another ecosystem somewhere else.
It's tough. There is a delicate balance, which we have unfortunately disrupted long ago. It's like the coyotes and wolves where, at one point, the government was offering monetary rewards for every shot wolf or coyote. Now, they're gone from the areas where they used to be and, in turn, the deer or rabbit population is out of control. Which, disrupts the entire ecosystem and leaves far reaching consequences.
Putting an ecosystem back together is a lot harder than tearing it apart. In fact, the solution for the deer population is to bring human hunters in. Will we ever learn from our past mistakes, I wonder?
The ecosystem point is interesting. As far as I know, the classic blue or white pigeons/doves are a domestic animal run wild,that have been introduced by man in the local ecosystems, like my neighbour's pigeons. We are seeing a resurgence of the autocthonous ring-necked dove which is our native wild species, another reason the authorities are eager to get rid of the man-introduced (and much messier) domestic pigeon. The ring-necked doves don't crap all over everything, breed only once a season, and don't attack you if you're carrying visible bread...the local pigeons WILL land on your head and shoulders and try to get at your baguette because they are convinced that if there's bread around, it's for them!
It's kind of like the cats-in-Australia thing...they take over and the native animals suffer. So which is worse...the effects of the man-introduced "outsider" or the effects of trying to eliminate it, in this case centuries after the introduction.