PiCAS INTERNATIONAL

The debate over the use of Avitrol, a poison commonly used to control bird populations, continues to rage in the USA with an attempt by one wildlife rehabilitator in the city of Gardner, Massachusetts, to have the poison banned. Sigrid Warren has called upon Gardner’s new Mayor Elect, Mark Hawke, to outlaw the poison in attempt to reduce the suffering caused to both pigeons (the species most commonly targeted by pest control companies that recommend Avitrol) and other wildlife that die agonising deaths due to direct or secondary poisoning. PiCAS International fully supports Sigrid Warren’s attempts to have this dangerous and indiscriminate poison banned in Gardner. PiCAS International has offered to work alongside Gardner City Council, and with any property owner experiencing an entrenched pigeon-related problem, to provide a humane, sustainable and cost-effective alternative to the use of poison or any other form of lethal control. The story can be read in full on the website of the Worcester Telegram and Gazette:

http://www.telegram.com/article/20071230/NEWS/712300405

The plight of Gardner’s wildlife is not uncommon in the USA and other countries that allow the unregulated use of indiscriminate poisons such as Avitrol. Although Avitrol is commonly referred to as a “flock disperser’ by those that recommend its use, it is, in reality, a poison that causes extreme convulsions in any bird that ingests the poison, eventually resulting in a long and agonising death. According to the manufacturer however, when the flock witnesses some of its members convulsing in agony, as a result of having ingested the poison, they are deterred. This is nonsense. Pigeons feed en-masse and therefore the entire feeding flock will ingest the poison simultaneously. All of the birds that ingest the posion will be effected, almost certainly with lethal consequences, assuming of course enough bait is distributed and the target birds feed long enough. Secondary poisoning is also common when, for example, a bird of prey takes a poisoned pigeon and dies as a result. The case of Melbourne’s two beloved pairs of Peregrine falcons is a good example - there was a public outcry when both pairs of Peregrines, and their young, died as a result of taking poisoned pigeons.

Avitrol, like most poisons used to control wild birds, is entirely indiscriminate. The poison is usually offered in the form of treated grain that can be taken by any seed-eating bird in the area in which the bait is distributed - as a result, many protected species die having ingested Avitrol when it was intended for the control of feral pigeons only. Even the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the body that regulates and licences the use of poisons used to control animal and bird populations in the USA, noted, in a September report, that Avitrol represents “an acute risk” to non-target species, including hawks and other protected species of raptor. Most European countries have banned the use of dangerous and indiscriminate poisons to control wild bird populations but to date only the city of New York currently operates an outright ban on the use of Avitrol in the USA. Elsewhere in the USA Avitrol is used extensively in attempts to control bird populations.

Not only does Avitrol cause ‘unnecessary suffering’ but it is also completely ineffective, and in fact counter-productive, where the control of feral pigeons is concerned. The use of Avitrol, as with any lethal method of pigeon control, results in a 10%-20% increase in pigeon flock size due to rejuvenation within the flock. The size of a flock of pigeons is dictated, absolutely, by the extent of available food. If the food supply increases, as it does when pigeons are physically removed from a feeding flock, the instinctive response from the surviving members of the flock is to breed until such a time as flock size is, once again, fully exploiting the food supply. Pigeons will always overcompensate when breeding to replace lost members of the flock however, and this factor, combined with an influx of pigeons from other feeding flocks moving in to exploit the new increased food supply, results in the 10%-20% increase. Every time lethal controls are used in an effort to reduce pigeon flock size the result is the same - a mini population explosion rather than a reduction in flock size. The only beneficiaries of lethal pigeon control operations are the pest control companies that sell the services. Property owners would be better to do nothing than to buy in lethal bird control services - at least population size would remain stable.