Valley Interview : Downtown Glendale’s Pigeon Problem Defies Cheap Solutions

Downtown Glendale is home to about 10,000 pigeons--so many that city officials are almost at their wits’ end over what to do about it.

Business operators in an area bordered by Glenoaks Boulevard, Colorado Street and Central and Maryland avenues complain that pigeon droppings are unsightly and may lead to respiratory ailments.

Animal-rights groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have opposed virtually every idea considered by Glendale city officials to deal with the problem. Proposals they have deemed inhumane are placing the pigeons in bags and tying them to an automobile tailpipe, poisoning their food, snaring them in a sticky gel or trapping and taking them far away for release.

One idea approved by animal-rights groups is the use of roosting barriers, or strings of metal needles laid along window ledges and other parts of buildings where pigeons congregate. But it is also the most expensive proposal, costing about $6,000 to line just one side of a block.

The city has an ordinance that bans pigeon feeding, but it will not be enforced until Oct. 17.

Until then, posters featuring an orange-eyed pigeon staring defiantly at passersby are being posted in storefronts as a reminder of the ban.

Researcher Leslie Gerstenfeld-Press of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was interviewed from the group’s headquarters in Rockville, Md.

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Question: City officials in Glendale complain that groups such as yours have failed to offer any good, inexpensive alternatives. Can you give me any?

Answer: Well, there is no inexpensive alternative other than just accepting it and trying to cope with the situation as best as possible. There are things that Glendale can do to try to minimize the conflict, but it costs money.

The things we recommend are exclusion, modifying building structures so that pigeons are unable to roost on them, which is usually the problem. Pigeons are roosting on window ledges, rooftops, awnings. So if you can shift the pigeons away from those sites that usually solves the problem.

There are tapes of bird alarm calls, which is not an ultrasonic device, of the species you’re interested in frightening off. They’re played over a loudspeaker when the birds come in. It has to be done every evening for maybe a week before the birds finally get the hint.

Q: What do you mean by exclusion?

A: Birds are excluded from buildings. There are a number of anti-roosting devices out there. These are all usually made of metal. They are designed to be very unobtrusive. Unless you’re really close up to them from street level, you shouldn’t see them at taller than the second story. They are porcupine wire strips. They’re installed on window ledges so that the birds aren’t able to sit there.

Q: How much should the first alternative cost?

A: That all depends on whether you do it yourself or whether you have a professional do it, and the size of the building in question. It can be done as inexpensively as possible by purchasing the materials directly from the manufacturer and having the city workers do it themselves.

Q: These options sound like they would require 100% participation from the people being affected, and that’s something you’ll never be able to get.

A: Someone in the city has said something to me about that, and it really seems like a shame since these are the people who are complaining about the pigeons. And if they don’t want to participate in solving the problem, that really seems unfair to their fellow business owners.

Q: Short of Glendale being able to take any action soon, what is PETA’s official position on pigeons? That they ought to just be left alone?

A: We really don’t believe that any problem warrants exterminating these birds. They’re not a significant health threat, and it’s not worth killing the birds.

We believe if there’s a problem you have to take every possible step to solve the problem humanely. We would not condone a lethal control program. We would say the birds should be left alone.

Q: Why should anyone give 2 cents about a pigeon’s life?

A: Because they are living beings and they can feel pain just like any other animal, and we should all care about all other life. We should care about other people’s lives. We should care about other animals’ lives. Really, all they’re doing is going about their business the way nature intended.

Q: The city has not ruled out the use of lethal injections, which are not supposed to be painful but, of course, would result in death. Is this something PETA supports?

A: No.

Q: How prevalent is the overpopulation of pigeons across the country? How many other cities have you dealt with?

A: (Laughs) I’ve dealt with dozens of cities. Anyplace where you have a large enough city to have quite a number of buildings with ledges and ornate detailing, and may have a sanitation problem, you’re going to have pigeons.

In a situation like Glendale, where you are very close to some other major cities, eliminating your pigeon population will not be a permanent thing because there is no dome covering Glendale. Pigeons from elsewhere will find Glendale and will move in.

Pigeons do this. They have sentinels to go out and look for a better place to live. Once they get to a point where they’re currently living, if there are too many of them, they will look for another place to live.

Whether it’s a serious problem is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. We don’t think droppings are a serious problem. Droppings can be cleaned up. The word problem is really a relative thing.

Q: Is there a city in the United States that has dealt with this appropriately?

A: Washington, D.C., is trying to deal with it. They will not kill the pigeons that live in the city. When there is a problem on a specific site, at a specific building, the building owners have to take it upon themselves to do something about it. But wide-scale poisoning, trapping, gassing, injecting is not acceptable in Washington, D.C.

Some of the government buildings, in particular, have undergone wide-scale pigeon-proofing. Basically, the birds cannot get into the parts of the buildings that have (the) roosting spots. Pigeons cannot get in and defecate.

With the United States Department of Agriculture building, one whole side, I believe, cost $100,000. But that’s a very large building.

I’ve seen many restaurants in town use porcupine wire, a strip of needles, along the edge of the roof on the front of the building. And that might cost $100 to do one side of the building.

Q: Would a ban on pigeon feeding and 100% compliance from the public be enough to send the pigeons away?

A: It would really do an awful lot to help the situation. Urban pigeons are not believed to live longer than a year to three years. If you really significantly reduce the amount of food they have available to them, they will significantly reduce the amount of offspring they produce and what you will find is a gradual decrease in the population of birds.

We’re not saying that if, boom, everybody stops feeding them today and they clean up the streets and there’s no more trash and there’s no more food, tomorrow they will all be gone. But gradually, over the next few years, Glendale will find its population decreased.

Q: What would PETA do if Glendale took action that your organization doesn’t approve of?

A: I couldn’t tell you. I’m sure many of our local members would protest.