Send this to your town council to STOP THE POISONING OF PIGEONS!
http://www.pigeoncote.com/vet/recovery/recovery.htm#RECOGNISING
CULLING
All methods of culling involve cruelty and are a misuse of funds because all they achieve are a temporary gap asking to be filled by other pigeons moving in from surrounding areas. After a cull, more food is available to those remaining; hence more pigeons are fit to breed and less succumb to infant mortality. With these advantages they can replenish their numbers at an astonishing degree, to again be the scapegoats for inefficiency, and victims of misguided priorities and wasted resources.
A given pigeon population will level off to a density rate that the food availability can sustain. When that point is reached, less robust pairs will not reproduce and natural losses tend to stabilize flock numbers. So basically, if left alone the flock will not grow ad infinitum, but regulate itself without the unnecessary savagery of drugs, falconry, traps and guns.
If their presence is justifiably unwanted, the only sure (and most humane) way to deter feathered opportunists is to reduce the amount of refuse we produce and net off roost sites. As long as mesh is maintained no pigeon should suffer, and the flock will be stronger and more resistant to disease. This solution is cheaper, permanent and does not employ armies of mercenaries who poison the public's mind with ill-informed scare-mongering propaganda merely to ensure an easy salary.
Too many people accept this ridiculous disregard for life and money, because they choose to believe 'experts' who have a vested financial interest in promoting deplorable myths about these birds.
What any honest vet will tell you is that feral pigeons are no more a risk to human health than any other bird or animal species and it is doubtful than any outbreak of ill-health has ever been traced to pigeons. Another common myth is that pigeon's droppings corrode buildings, but these droppings are neither acidic nor alkaline and cannot corrode building materials. But pigeons are a convenient visible target for anyone who would rather pin the blame on them rather than the sulphur dioxide of car exhausts and acid rain.
