14 February 2006
Pigeons Back in Town, Despite $22,000 Spent
Schreiber - A hard-core flock of about a dozen pigeons has returned to an underpass in
this northwestern Ontario town, apparently undeterred by the $22,000 spent last year to keep them away.
The money, a 50-50 split between the municipality and Canadian Pacific Railway, was used to install wire mesh to stop the
pesky birds from roosting under a downtown railway bridge and spattering the walkway below with their droppings.
Most of the 30-odd birds left after the mesh went up.
But some have come back and are now hanging around the bridge itself or defiantly perching themselves on the walkway railing. "It's
nowhere as bad as it was, it's more of a nuisance now," Mayor Don McArthur said Monday.
Still, town crews must continue to wash down the underpass and railing for health reasons - an expense the town had been hoping to
avoid.
There seems to be no sure-fire way of scaring off the pigeons, believed to have been attracted by grain spilled out of
railway cars. Fake owls didn't spook them; the pigeons simply perched on top.
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