Next battle in St. Paul: Pigeon contraception

In its continuing quest to control the downtown pigeon population and its fallout on sidewalks and skyways, St. Paul is going Hollywood.

Next up in the battle: Pigeon contraception.

An automatic feeder atop the Lowry Building is poised next week to begin mixing in the contraceptive, OvoControl-P, with the cracked corn and grain that has been scattered about the rooftop of late. The pellets do not harm the birds, but prevent eggs from hatching by impeding development of the layer between yolk and egg white.

The birth-control plan has the backing of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and is producing results in Hollywood, which found itself overrun with pigeons as result of frenzied feeding by a well-heeled seamstress dubbed the "Bird Lady."

Neighborhood leaders there estimated that the woman put out 112 tons of bird feed a year, in turn yielding other unsettling numbers. If a bird metabolizes two-thirds of what it eats, one-third becomes waste, and one-third of 112 equals 37 tons of pigeon excrement, said George Abrahams, second-in-command in Hollywood's pigeon offensive.

That leaves a lot of gray to run in the warm California sun.

In downtown St. Paul, near the feeder at the Lowry Building, Bill Stephenson, the city's animal control supervisor, said that there are 20 to 30 birds that soon could be pecking away at the contraceptive kibble. A few blocks away, people can be seen feeding pigeons at the Seventh Place Mall.

That is nowhere near Hollywood proportions, of course. But Bob Kessler, director of the Department of Safety and Inspections, said that there's plenty of reason to be disgusted, nonetheless. He points, in particular, to the skyway spanning 5th Street between the Lowry Building and Lawson Commons. "A disgrace," he says.

There, at 7:07 a.m. Wednesday, were nine adult pigeons, a squab and three eggs, surrounded by enough dung to cloud the glass at floor level.

Soon, however, a number of skyways will be retrofit with mechanisms to deter roosting, and that effort is designed in part to spiff up the skyways for the Republican National Convention in September.

A ground assault?

Not everyone in City Hall is convinced of the urgency of the pigeon-control campaign.

"I think it's a really overblown issue," said City Council Member Dave Thune, who represents downtown and has had bird droppings fall on his head. Some things, he said, seem silly to try to stop: "God made pigeons. Pigeons poop," he said. "What are you going to do?"

Kessler got his directive during a chance meeting last year under a Wabasha Street skyway. There, he bumped into Mayor Chris Coleman who, alarmed at the pigeon gunk underfoot, proclaimed to Kessler that he was just the man "who could do something about it."

Said Kessler, "I bet I could."

The city first learned of OvoControl-P from a PETA biologist who attended a pigeon summit last year with downtown building owners. The birth-control method, combined with a gradual reduction in people feeding pigeons, is a humane approach to controlling the population, PETA contends. The St. Paul project, Kessler added, is a pilot effort to prove to building owners that they, too, should install the contraceptive feeders. The pilot is costing a couple of hundred dollars, he said.

For the contraceptive to kick in, a pigeon must eat the kibble for five consecutive days. Predators who consume pigeons are not vulnerable to its effects.

In Hollywood, the pigeon population has shown a 90 percent decline in some areas, a reduction that Abrahams attributes not just to OvoControl, but also to the arrests of people who were killing hawks and falcons and to a sharp cutback in the Bird Lady's largesse.

But is St. Paul ready to crack down on its pigeon feeders?

Only if rodents gather, too, Kessler said, or if the bird droppings become a nuisance. To him, he said, "it's kind of nice to see people being able to sit on a bench and feed the pigeons."

Staff Writer Chris Havens contributed to this report. Anthony Lonetree • 651-298-1545