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SLO puts its pigeons on birth control, stop the flies

October 23, 2019

By JOSH FRIEDMAN

To combat the large amount bird feces and flies in and around a downtown creek, the city of San Luis Obispo has decided to lure pigeons into going on birth control. [KSBY]

Hundreds of pigeons have created a sanctuary in a tunnel beside Mission Plaza, causing multiple environmental problems in downtown SLO, including contamination of the creek and an increasing amounts of flies. The Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board has already cited the city for unhealthy levels of fecal bacteria in the creek.

In turn, the city has been training birds to eat from downtown feeders that have birth control in the food. City officials expect the downtown pigeon population to quickly decrease, as the pigeons currently living in the tunnel are not in a conducive habitat and have a shortened life expectancy.

City officials are working with Cal Poly to develop a spray for parts of downtown that will mitigate the fly problem. Many downtown shoppers have been frustrated with the amount of flies in the area.

The city consulted animal rights groups, including PETA, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife about the bird birth control plan.

While discussing the extent of the poop problem, City Biologist Freddy Otte said in an interview with KSBY that about 500 birds are living in the tunnel. Otte then claimed individual birds can produce the equivalent of 40 pounds of poop a day.

“If you think about a flock of 100 birds being able to produce about 4,000 pounds of poop every day, multiply that by five and you have a lot of pigeon poop going into the creek every day,” Otte said.

The interview segment that aired did not delve into how a single bird is able to produce 40 pounds of poop a day.


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Using Freddy Otte’s figures translates to 10 tons a day, a day, a day of bird poop. I think maybe most of that poop is coming out of Freddy’s mouth.


27

Adding hormones to public bird feeders? What could go wrong?


Sterile sparrows, doves, robins and other birds isn’t a concern?


What about hawks and falcons, the pidgeons natural predators? Do we want them getting a dose of BC?


what about the water and the fish? What about herons and cranes who will eat from the creek and concentrate BC in their tissues?


oh well….the city biologist says it’s OK, who am I to question him?


Also, I had no idea that pidgeons eat more than 40 pounds of food EACH every day! These bird feeders must be the size of garbage dumpsters in order to feed all those birds their BC meds….


Perhaps it’s all BS. Most likely that’s the case.


36

Absolutely spot on DocT! This means of getting rid of the pigeon problem will have horrible far reaching effects on all the other species of birds.


Well said….


24

Great job city council. I thought things couldn’t get any more idiotic but I was wrong.

This has the potential to be an ecological disaster far beyond killing pigeons. Does your city biologist know what the term “food chain” means? What may be birth control for pigeons could be a death sentence in other species that eat these birds, including hawks and even Peregrine falcons, an endangered species photographed on Oceanaire Drive a few years ago (neighbor has the picture to prove it). Or these valuable birds could die off as noted above from the birth control.

Maybe the city should try other means such as trapping, shooting, or eliminating their habitat, and while at it perhaps the city could remove the homeless people camping in our parks and streams – oops, wait a minute, they are a protected class and their poop and trash is OK. Silly me.


16

“The city consulted animal rights groups, including PETA,”…


Your tax dollars at work, Folks.


20

Why not just shoot the pigeons?


14

Will that make the fish sterile too??


21

I call BS on the math, 100 birds generate 4000 lbs of poop a day? That is 40 lbs of poop per bird per day? Also is the birthcontrol feed being eaten by other birds? There is a massive bird die off happening in the world.


25

This is definitely Columbidae-ist and must not be tolerated.

To pigeon lovers, this is far more offensive than other, more popular offenses like being racist or sexists.

Trump must be behind this effort.


-4

Just give every kid in town a Red Ryder BB Gun…save money….


23

Whoa- that pigeon ain’t lookin’ too happy!


And just one more point: “The interview segment that aired did not delve into how a single bird is able to produce 40 pounds of poop a day.” Well, now, City Biologist Freddy Otte is presumably a scientist of some sort, and let’s remember now- we’re not allowed to question scientists. After all, they’re the ones telling us that “climate change” is going to end the world in a dozen years.


LOL.


25

SLO City pigeons, like the SLO City Manager, paid more than the Governor of California, and the City Attorney, paid more than the California Attorney General, while contracting out all work to private firms, dump more s**t as annoying scavengers than would be normally expected. And yes, SLO City has a biologist, probably more than one, plus contracting out actual “work”, as it were, to favored consulting firms. But if you want a new police station, for which the City has been collecting impact fees for for decades and misspent, or your roads maintained, likewise, you must vote to pass an extra tax.


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