"it's not a pigeon massacre every day in El Cerrito"

July 1, 2022 8:12 PM

"Though Pac-Man doesn’t know it, he’s got a very important job to do: manage the pigeon population at the above ground BART station." More about the falconry, Falcon Force and "the staff." Just want to dish on some dumb pigeons? Check out @BadNests.
posted by jessamyn (12 comments total)

I can't get to sleep on the early side when you show me things like this and @BadNests. They make what once grossed me out (i.e. everything about pigeons) into something hilarious and relatable (but still, pigeons, eew.)—and it sounds like the Harris Hawks shooing away pigeons would be fun to see IRL, and I hope it gets legs and that other high-profile pigeon shitstorms can adopt a Pac-Man patrol. Go Raptors!

That said, there's good money to be made in mining guano...
posted by not_on_display at 8:25 PM on July 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

Several BART stations have a severe pigeon infestation. Glen Park, for instance, has some dork who scatters birdseed in the parking lot to encourage over-population. I hope the raptor program can be expanded to many of the other affected BART stations.
posted by blob at 8:57 PM on July 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

This is relatively nearby and it was fun to learn about it here. Thanks Jessamyn!
posted by unus sum at 10:37 PM on July 1, 2022

Interesting to see more of these working animal programs in the Bay Area. We also use herds of goats in the hills to clear flammable brush during every dry season, they’re fun to see on bike rides.
posted by migurski at 11:14 PM on July 1, 2022

Please post pics of the dirt biking goats!
posted by boilermonster at 12:14 AM on July 2, 2022 [7 favorites]

Ah! This explains sighting someone walking around with a hawk on their arm at a bulk trash drop-off station in San Leandro, CA, a couple of years ago.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 3:55 AM on July 2, 2022

I love gainful employment for raptors as much as the next person, but a much better form of pigeon population control is municipal lofts. Viable eggs laid in the loft can be replaced with fake eggs, which is cheaper and more effective than killing birds after they're born. Giving birds healthy food in the loft reduces their interest in foraging from trash, and vets can also easily check the health of loft residents and provide care as needed.
posted by serif at 5:19 AM on July 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

Why do Pigeon nests look so shitty?

TL;DR pigeon haters gonna hate, but pigeons are smarter than you think
posted by chavenet at 5:47 AM on July 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

pretty funny for humans, who domesticated pigeons and in doing so removed the need for them to make elaborate nests, to then flame pigeons for making shitty nests.
posted by serif at 5:59 AM on July 2, 2022 [4 favorites]

which is cheaper and more effective than killing birds after they're born.

One of the points the article makes is that the raptors, for the most part, just menace the pigeons into deciding "This isn't a great place to settle down" and they move on. The raptors are fed with other food when they are at work. I do like the loft idea as well.
posted by jessamyn at 8:03 AM on July 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Interesting to see more of these working animal programs in the Bay Area. We also use herds of goats in the hills to clear flammable brush during every dry season, they’re fun to see on bike rides.

fun to see on hikes, too
posted by atoxyl at 10:23 AM on July 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

My gut reaction to the bad nests on first viewing was that these are images of avian poverty.
posted by yonega at 5:59 PM on July 5, 2022