Pigeons perch on a balcony in Toronto’s Kensington Market in July. Toronto has been trying to control its pigeon population through a pilot project that uses bait laced with a drug to stop avian reproduction.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
At five secret locations in Toronto, city staff are trying to train pigeons to take their birth control.
Bait laced with a drug to stop avian reproduction is discharged at set times daily, encouraging the birds to make a habit of returning. If all goes as planned, the dosed birds will lay eggs that don’t hatch, leading gradually to a drop in pigeon numbers.
“You will still have some new pigeons, but you’ll have fewer,” said Esther Attard, chief veterinarian at Toronto Animal Services. “It’s about keeping the population smaller.”
Pigeons are often seen as a nuisance, and fears of disease and concerns about the damage their acidic feces causes to buildings has prompted cities around the world to battle these birds. Approaches range from clamping down on food sources to introducing predator birds to scare them away.
Some cities have also experimented with pigeon birth control, a method that has had mixed success.
Interactions between city dwellers and animals have become more fraught as municipalities across Canada push deeper into what’s known as the wildland-urban interface.
In Vancouver, wildlife control efforts at the transit agency TransLink include dealing with SkyTrain station visits by bears. Feral swine, meanwhile, are running rampant on the Prairies and infiltrating human settlements.
But in the densest parts of country, it is the usual suspects that have been thwarting efforts to remove them. Rats remain ubiquitous – except, officially anyway, in Alberta – and raccoons are so prevalent in Toronto that residents set up a shrine to one that died on a sidewalk.
A pigeon feeding frenzy ensues after a woman empties a large bag of rice outside a grocery store in Toronto on July 13.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Pigeons fall into a curious liminal zone. Although they appear to be wild, they are largely descended from domestic birds. Some were homing or racing pigeons that did not return. Others were released at weddings. Some are “fancy pigeon” show birds, recognizable on grimy sidewalks by their striking plumage.
Toronto’s attempt to reduce its flock involves automatic devices that dispense drugged food. Their locations are kept secret to prevent curious explorers from disturbing the pigeons, and also to stop bird lovers from damaging the devices.
However, staff visit to replenish the feeders, and webcams give an idea of what is happening at the sites. The program, started early in 2023 and originally slated to run 12 months, was extended through this year to give staff time to gather more data. The goal is to reduce the pigeon population by 50 per cent annually.
Dr. Attard said that while there is no hard data yet from Toronto’s program, there appears to be some reduction in numbers.
This latest attempt follows another effort to manage the city’s flock, which fell short. Although Toronto banned feeding pigeons last year, in mid-July, city staff said only two people had been ticketed under the 15-month-old bylaw. Bird lovers are still seen in many locations dropping seeds and bread from large bags.
Such behaviour makes it harder to manage pigeon numbers and reflects clashing views about these birds. While some city residents like and encourage their presence, others vilify the birds as vermin.
U.S. sociologist Colin Jerolmack argues that pigeons, once viewed benignly or even favourably, fell out of favour as cities became more antiseptic.
“Rhetorically framing pigeons as rats with wings reveals a cultural anxiety about disorder and a deeply felt need for a sanitized city,” he wrote in 2008 in the journal Social Problems.
Viewing pigeons as dirty pests may make it philosophically easier to kill them, but experts warn that poison carries downsides. Cats and other creatures can get a fatal dose, as could animals that eat poisoned carcasses. As well, poison is a cruel death for birds. And a cull could backfire, causing the survivors to breed even more enthusiastically.
Instead, a number of cities have tried other approaches.
In Venice, you can no longer buy feed to attract the birds for photos in St. Mark’s Square. And in London, mayors going back two decades have been trying to get pigeons out of Trafalgar Square. They’ve removed food and deployed hawks, with bird lovers acting to thwart them at every turn.
A man feeds pigeons outside a grocery store in Toronto, on July 13.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
For Toronto-area pigeon enthusiast Erika Wilson, these birds deserve respect as intelligent creatures that share our urban space, eating our scraps and reflecting our own behaviour back at us.
A decade ago, Ms. Wilson found herself caring for a baby pigeon, which animal services said, was too young for them to take in. Now, she operates a donation-driven rescue operation, The Pigeon Nest, and Toronto city staff say they have used her knowledge to help inform pigeon-control efforts. She argues humans have a duty of care to the birds.
“They rely 100 per cent on us to survive in urban contexts,” Ms. Wilson said. “They’re entirely our pets, our responsibility. And we’ve done a really bad job.”
While there is no official count of Toronto’s pigeons, Dr. Attard says that, anecdotally, numbers had appeared to be going up in recent years. But she cautions that that could be because, in an increasingly vertical city, residents are more likely to spot the birds perching.
Deploying birth control has been tried elsewhere – and the jury is out on its effectiveness.
A 2017-2019 study in Barcelona found some pigeon colonies were cut in half, while other were unaffected. Another study, published in 2020, found the citywide population in the Catalan capital did not change and recommended against using this approach in large cities.
In Canada, TransLink has experimented with pigeon birth control in its SkyTrain system since around 2019. Spokesman Thor Diakow said it is being used in four stations and that it seemed to have stabilized or reduced numbers slightly.
Nadia Xenakis, a biologist and wild-animal welfare specialist with the BC SPCA, assisted with their program. In a recent interview, she said that human behaviour interfered with their efforts. With people leaving food, the pigeons were less interested in the drug-laced offerings. And even if that could be controlled, she said, expectations for birth-control programs have to be managed.
“You probably won’t eradicate them,” she said. “Because as birds do die off, you may have new ones move in, who then would be consuming birth control. So there likely will always been some sort of small population.”