New York City Considers Designated Feeding Areas for Pigeons

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/dont-feed-the-pigeons-here-but-over-there-ok/

“Safe pigeon-feeding zones” may be designated around the city as part of the negotiations between animal rights groups and the Brooklyn city councilman who has proposed fining pigeon feeders as much as $1,000 as strategy to control New York’s pigeon population.

Fines, which had been used successfully in Basel, Switzerland, to limit pigeon proliferation, were the most concrete proposal in a pigeon report issued by Councilman Simcha Felder’s office in November. Other ideas in the report included pigeon birth control and a pigeon czar.

But the report and the proposed fines brought out a number of pigeon proponents who defended the urban birds’ rights to co-exist with humans in New York’s sprawl. Since November, Mr. Felder’s office has been meeting with a number of groups over the fine-for-feeding legislation. In December, at one of those meetings, the Humane Society brought up the idea of safe pigeon-feeding zones with Mr. Felder’s office.

“If our idea was, there are too many pigeons around where people are walking, waiting for the subway, sitting in parks, etc.,” said Eric Kuo, a spokesman for Mr. Felder. “Someone brought up, if there are areas where people are not around, what’s the harm of allowing feeding there?”

The pigeon-friendly zones could include less-densely trafficked areas in Central Park and Prospect Park, Mr. Kuo said. The City Council’s lawyers who draft legislation have been asked to see if such a plan is feasible.

Councilman Simcha Felder Tackle New York's Pigeon Issues

Take note of the date -- but this may be a viable solution.

Nov 13, 2007 10:49 AM
Nachum hosted Councilman Felder on JM in the AM to discuss the outlawing of feeding New York pigeons.

Nachum spoke with the Hon. New York City Councilman Simcha Felder on JM in the AM this morning to discuss the councilman's latest legislative actions: outlawing pigeon feeding in NY.

He is hoping to redirect where the pigeons congregate by designating certain areas for pigeon feeding and outlawing it everywhere else.

http://www.nachumsegal.com/readBlog.cfm?blog=46891

Other interviews with the Councilman:
http://www.nachumsegal.com/searchResults.cfm?searchFor=news:felder

Source: Nachum's News (NachumSiegel.com)

Commentary: Pigeons, People & Perceptions

Commentary
Pigeons, people & perceptions
By Mickey Z.
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Nov 15, 2007, 00:14

New York City Councilman Simcha Felder is sick and tired of some Big Apple residents “doing whatever they do all over the city without anyone trying to stop it.” Is he talking about trigger-happy cops, double parked cab drivers, omnipresent terror suspects, loud cellphone users, or maybe corporate lawyers? Nope. Felder has his legislative eye on Columba livia, a.k.a. Rock Pigeon (the bird formerly known as Rock Dove).

According to BirdWeb.com, the Rock Pigeon is “originally from Europe, Northern Africa, and India” but was “introduced to North America in the 1600s.” Since then, of course, “numbers have increased significantly as more and more of our country is urbanized.”

To combat the seemingly urgent problem of urbanized pigeon droppings, the intrepid Councilman Felder plans to introduce legislation banning the feeding of Columba livia. To defy this ban would be to risk a $1,000 fine. (Interestingly, the Rock Pigeon is despised while conversely its all-white cousins -- the Dove -- remain a beloved symbol of peace. Could this be a case of avian racism?) Mayor Michael Bloomberg hasn’t yet endorsed the ban but did opine: “We do have a lot of pigeons and they do tend to foul a lot of our areas.”

Just for the hell of it, let’s replace the word “pigeons” with the word “corporations” in Bloomberg’s statement. Better fit, huh? How about if we just insert “humans”?

For some, the feral pigeon could be viewed as a nuisance. But in all the thousands of years Columba livia have dwelled on this planet, did any of them ever feel the need to invent, say, nuclear weapons? No Rock Dove created pesticides, napalm, Agent Orange, or the internal combustion engine; you can’t blame cigarettes, greenhouse gases, hydroelectric dams, waterboarding, or mercury-laced vaccinations on a pigeon; and rest assured no non-human conjured up zoos, animal experimentation, factory farming, or the rodeo.

Also in the news is James M. Stevenson, founder of the Galveston Ornithological Society. Stevenson is currently on trial in Texas, charged with fatally shooting a cat that he said was “stalking endangered shorebirds.” In his own defense, the bird-watching enthusiast said: “This is about wild species disappearing from your planet. I did what I had to do.” Apparently, that jury will hear no theories as to why so many wild species are disappearing from our planet.

Maybe Councilman Felder can blame that on the Rock Pigeon, too.

Copied with permission: Online Journal
Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net/.

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Pigeon-Ban Pusher Addresses Community Board 12 Meeting

12/13/2007
Pigeon-ban pusher:‘I like pigeons’
By Matthew Wolfe
Courier Life Publications

City Councilmember Simcha Felder addresses CB 12 at a recent meeting.

City Councilmember Simcha Felder explained his rationale behind penalizing the public feeding of pigeons at a Community Board 12 meeting last week. Citing messiness and health danger, Felder said that while he supported the existence of pigeons he felt it important to keep their population growth in check.

“The proposal that I put forward is to ban feeding pigeons in public places” said Felder. “We don’t intend to eliminate pigeons in New York City or in the rest of the world.” Felder said he wouldn’t restrict the feeding of pigeons on private proper, he has reportedly said that he would like a $1,000 fine for the feeding of pigeons in public.

Felder has not yet introduced a bill, but has reportedly said that he will do in some time in December.

Felder suggested that he had scaled down his proposals from those offered in the report.

While Felder’s report recommends promoting the breeding of hawks to curb the pigeon population and the deployment of pigeon birth control - as well as appointing a city “Pigeon Czar” – he said at the meeting that he was currently “not into discussing” contraception and hawks but was only emphasizing the limitation of the bird’s food source.

The ASPCA and PETA, the animals organization, support his plan, Felder said, although for different reasons. The groups say that over-population is harmful to the species.

Communicable health risks involving pigeons all stem from contact with their excrement, Felder said. A recent report released by his office that outlined the reasons behind his plan, says the droppings can host such as ornithosis, encephalitis, Newcastle disease, cryptococcosis, toxoplasmosis, salmonella food poisoning and histoplasmosis. The reports says while the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene consider pigeon droppings to be only a nuisance, their literature cites the threat several diseases in the stool.

Due to the corrosive nature of their droppings, pigeons are estimated to cause approximately 1.1 billion in damage nationwide annually, the report said. According to a recent study, pigeons leave approximately 25 pounds of excrement over the course of a single year, or slightly more than one ounce a day. Pigeons are sufficiently supplied with food left out for them that they are unable to consume all of it. The remainder, Felder said, is often eaten by rats, allowing them to procreate and prosper.

Felder acknowledged to the Borough Park/Kensington residents present that while some may regard the blessings bestowed by the pigeons atop the elevated F-line as a good omen, he said others are less sanguine about receiving such a benediction.

Open Letter to Councilman Simcha Felder

November 29, 2007

City Council Member Simcha Felder
4424 16th Avenue
New York 11204

Dear Councilman Felder,

I am one of your Jewish neighbors in Philadelphia, PA, who spends a lot of time in New York. As such, I have heard about your pigeon issues and I would like to respectfully provide my comments.

Surely you are aware that one of the most important tenets of Judaism is kindness to animals, and in fact, the primary principle behind the treatment of animals in Jewish law is preventing the suffering of living creatures - tza'ar ba'alei chayim. I, therefore, find it disturbing and surprising that you have such an intense dislike of a harmless bird to the extent that you have forgotten our teachings and are proposing a rather exorbitant fee ($1,000 ???!) for feeding pigeons and have made numerous derogatory comments about the species.

One of my earliest and fondest childhood memories is of being with my father in Atlantic City, going into the Planters Peanuts shop with him and buying peanuts, which he crushed into small pieces, and feeding the pigeons with him. He entertained me by calling the pigeons by peoples’ names (“Hello Molly”, “How’s the family, Sammy”, etc.). I thought my father the most wondrous of all human beings – why, he actually knew the names of these birds! I learned kindness and respect to animals through my father in this way. While I am not opposed to reasonable consideration on feeding pigeons (people need to be respectful to neighbors and the environment and not create a problem, etc.), I think your fine is excessive and I also think it is rather heavy-handed. Worse, it removes an opportunity for grandparents, parents and children to interact with nature; our children are increasingly removed from the natural world today and are losing the knowledge of how to co-exist with nature. Our solution today to living with a variety of species is to kill them all when they become inconvenient. This is just wrong.

This brings me to my main point. We, of all people, who were treated as something less than human by the Nazis in concentration camps, should NEVER posit a similar opinion about one of God’s creations – that a pigeon deserves contempt while a robin, for instance, is okay. Does this not make us exactly like the people who tried to exterminate us? Your comments regarding foie gras and your insensitivity to the intense suffering of ducks and geese were equally unkind. Kindness and mercy are among the defining traits of the Jewish people and we are taught that anyone who shows kindness to animals demonstrates that he is descended from Abraham. Your actions and statements are contrary to this.

I think you need to do some little research about pigeons (and, for that matter, foie gras). They have never caused any disease (despite the best efforts of researchers to pin something on them, no proof has ever been found; they are no dirtier than any other wild bird; in fact, they do not get bird flu), they are exemplary parents, they are benign, harmless, rather friendly, never bite; expert navigators, they have saved countless lives in World Wars I and II, serving as message carriers (read up on a French pigeon named “Cher Ami”) and they are part of the dove family. Where would Noah have been without them? What is a city without pigeons? I cannot even imagine St. Marks Square or New York without these urban symbols.

If you want to blame filth and dirt problems somewhere, try humans. It is our species that creates garbage, disease and unsanitary conditions and is destroying this planet, not the pigeons. I have seen people miserable enough to deliberately run pigeons over with their cars and poison them. You tell me which species is better.

In the Bible, those who care for animals are heroes, while those who hunt animals are villains. Jacob, Moses and King David were all shepherds, people who cared for animals (Gen. 30, Ex. 31, I Sam. 17). The Talmud specifically states that Moses was chosen for his mission because of his skill in caring for animals. "The Holy One, Blessed Be He, said 'Since you are merciful to the flock of a human being, you shall be the shepherd of My flock, Israel.'" Likewise, Rebecca was chosen as a wife for Isaac because of her kindness to animals. When Abraham's servant asked for water for himself, she volunteered to water his camels as well, and thereby proved herself a worthy wife (Gen. 24).

On the other hand, the two hunters in the Bible, Nimrod and Esau, are both depicted as villains. The Talmud tells the story of a great rabbi, Judah Ha-Nasi, who was punished with years of pain because he was insensitive to the fear of a calf being led to slaughter.

I sincerely hope that you will open your mind and re-think the pigeon situation. Perhaps more importantly, re-think your attitude toward ALL animals and remember that we are the Chosen People because we are the role models for the world. As such, we must demonstrate a higher ethic, the highest of which is kindness and compassion to all living things.

Very truly yours,

Arlene B. Steinberg
Philadelphia, PA 19115
____________________________________
The Talmud tells us that the great sage, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, the compiler of the Mishna (the basic framework of the Talmud), was punished for an incident here he was insufficiently caring for an animal, and he was only relieved from his punishment when he showed mercy on some kittens.

There is a story told in the book Charedim by Rabbi Elazar Ezkari (d. 1600) About the Arizal - Rabbi Yitzchak Ashkenazi--the famous mystic of Tzefas, Israel--who was a contemporary of Rabbi Ezkari (who also lived in Tzefas). The Arizal once looked at the face of a certain Torah scholar and told him, "Your face is marked by the sin of causing pain to animals." The scholar was very disturbed. He investigated the matter and discovered that his wife did not feed their chickens in the morning but instead allowed them to wander through the yard and street to peck for food. He instructed his wife to prepare for them a mixture of bran-flour and water every morning. Shortly after he had done this he met the Arizal again and the Arizal informed him, without knowing about what he had done, that the sin was gone.

Pigeon-Rights Groups Rush to Defend Their Feathered Friends

November 17, 2007
The New York Times

Pigeon-Rights Groups Rush to Defend Their Feathered Friends

By PETER DUFFY

When Councilman Simcha Felder, a Democrat from Brooklyn, announced on Monday that he was going to introduce legislation that would make feeding pigeons an offense punishable by a fine, he made plain his feelings about “rats with wings,” a phrase used by a parks commissioner, Thomas P. F. Hoving, in the 1960s and popularized by Woody Allen in his 1980 film “Stardust Memories.”

At City Hall the next day, the Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, who was careful not to express an opinion on Mr. Felder’s proposal, chimed in that she, too, had no love of pigeons and had no use for what she considered “flying rats.”

The pigeon backlash has now begun.

About a dozen or so of the city’s leading pigeon advocates gathered for an emergency meeting on Wednesday night on the second floor of a Starbucks on the Upper East Side to plan a counteroffensive.

The meeting was called by Anna Dove, the founder and president of the New York Bird Club, which claims 60 members and is one of the two leading pigeon-rights groups in the city. Ms. Dove legally changed her last name from Kugelmas in honor of her dove, Lucy.

Al Streit, director of Pigeon People, a rescue and advocacy group that claims 200 members in its online discussion group, was also there, as were representatives from the New York City Pigeon Rescue Center, Win Animal Rights and other pro-pigeon organizations.

“Don’t people realize that this is an extraordinary bird?” asked Mary Beyerbach, a member of the New York Bird Club, who noted the heroics of Cher Ami, a homing pigeon who is credited with saving 194 American lives in France during World War I, earning him the Croix de Guerre. “A pigeon has never attacked a person,” she said. “A rat has.”

Unlike some animal rights groups, which favor humane methods of reducing the pigeon population, these activists are opposed to any governmental intervention into the lives of what they say are unjustly maligned creatures.

Ms. Dove called Mr. Felder’s plan “more scapegoating of pigeons,” with the intention of eliminating them from the city altogether. Colin Jerolmack, who was also at the meeting, characterized the idea as another attempt to “criminalize behavior in the public space.” Mr. Streit noted that the pigeon had few defenders. “Is there a reason to control this species?” he said. “The answer is no.”

In a report released this week, Councilman Felder, beyond seeking to ban pigeon feeding, called for the introduction of pigeon-scaring hawks and falcons, an increase in the frequency of litter pickup in enclosed trash cans, use of pigeon birth control methods and the appointment of a pigeon czar who would coordinate the city’s response to the abundant pigeon population.
The report said that an excess of pigeons created an excess of pigeon excrement, which some people blame for damaging infrastructure and carrying communicable diseases.

But pigeon advocates scoffed at the suggestion that pigeon excrement was sickening humans or harming bridges and roads. In fact, Mr. Felder’s report concedes that “cases of civilians contracting diseases from pigeons or pigeon droppings are rare and the threat is often exaggerated.” And the report quotes a pigeon-control expert who called reports of infrastructure damage caused by pigeons “widely exaggerated.”

Another expert, Andrew D. Blechman, author of “Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird,” said, “Pigeons don’t carry any more disease than you or I do.”
Still, groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals recognize the need to curb the pigeon population, which according to some estimates now tops one million in New York City.

Michael McGraw, a spokesman for PETA, said that the organization would support a feeding ban if it included a controlled-feeding program that would administer a contraceptive called OvoControl, which is one of Mr. Felder’s recommendations. PETA has supported a similar program in Los Angeles.

The A.S.P.C.A., which also supports administering pigeon birth control, is in favor of a ban on pigeon feeding, said Stephen Musso, the A.S.P.C.A.’s chief of operations. “There’s no reason to feed these birds, because they are quite resourceful,” he said.

Councilman Felder denied harboring any antipigeon animus. “I think people are pretty smart,” he said. “People in New York are pretty shrewd. They know what’s a problem and what’s not a problem. And if there is something we can do, even to improve it somewhat, that is a good thing.” He said that he had received “overwhelming support” from fellow council members.
Mr. Felder said he expected his proposal, which he plans to introduce next month, to include a feeding ban punishable by a $1,000 fine. In the meantime, ardent pigeon advocates are preparing to take their message to the public. They are organizing a demonstration on the steps of City Hall on Nov. 30.

During the meeting at Starbucks, the group discussed what to say in a planned informational flier, wondered how much it would cost to produce a banner and debated the best way to sway the public. Toward the end of the meeting, Ms. Dove asked the group, “How about having someone dress up in a pigeon costume?”

Reference: Councilman Felder's Report