Pigeon War in St. Paul
The front page of Thursday’s Pioneer Press said St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman has given the OK to wage war against the city’s population of pigeons. Coleman plans to have the pigeon problem under control by its own D-Day, that is, before the Republican National Convention comes to town in September 2008. The mayor has ordered Bob Kessler, the city’s director of licensing, inspections and environmental protection to come up with a battle plan. Kessler’s 3-point plan starts with a way to destroy the pigeons’ homes by putting a slant on their nesting areas. Step two is to create pigeon condos to entice pigeons to relocate to specific rooftop structures so that step three can be implemented: steal their eggs. After the pigeons lay their eggs in these controlled condos, the building’s maintenance staff would snatch the eggs. “We’ll keep taking their eggs, and they won’t have little ones,� Bill Stephenson, the city’s animal control supervisor said.
A sidebar explained that pigeon droppings are more than an aesthetic nuisance: they can transmit potentially deadly fungal diseases to humans if the material is inhaled. Val Cunningham, a member of the St. Paul Audubon Society said these sound like humane ways to deal with the problem.
AP ran their own take on the topic, focusing on the dramatic concepts of “stealing pigeon eggs� and “egg-stealing scheme� as the way the city plans to make a good impression for the Republican National Convention.