4 ms·

It is. I wonder what a humane method of population control looks like? Pigeon feeding can lead to rats so it seems reasonable to ban that.

• jonathrg 2y ago
  Feeding birds will only lead to rats if you give them the wrong food or too much. Otherwise they will eat it all up and there will be nothing left for the rats.
• lxgr 2y ago
  One option practiced in some cities with a pigeon population problem is to offer them safe, clean nesting places and to periodically swap out their eggs they lay there for decoys as part of cleaning. Perhaps surprisingly, they won't lay any more eggs as long as they're busy "incubating" the decoys! That'll also prevent at least the particular pigeons nesting there from building nests in other, more annoying locations, and when kept clean decreases the chance of spreading diseases both among themselves and to humans (bird flu, for example). Some other methods of decreasing their unnecessary suffering is to just generally keep cities clean (hopefully an easy win-win?), especially of human hair: Apparently barbers and hairdressers sweeping hair cuttings out into the street are a main reason for pigeons slowly and painfully losing their toes or entire feet.