Pigeon Birth Control

Hollywood’s Pigeons To Get The Pill
27 December, 2007

(AP) Hollywood residents believe they’ve found a humane way to reduce their pigeon population and the messes the birds make: the pill.

Over the next few months a birth control product called OvoControl P, which interferes with egg development, will be placed in bird food in new rooftop feeders.

“We think we’ve got a good solution to a bad situation,” said Laura Dodson, president of the Argyle Civic Association, the group leading the effort to try the new contraceptive. “The poop problem has become unmanageable and this could be the answer.”

Community leaders planned to announce the OvoControl P pilot program, which Dodson believes is the first of its kind in the nation, at a news conference Monday.

Dodson said representatives from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals contacted her group with the idea to use OvoControl P. Other animal rights groups, including the Humane Society of the United States, support the contraceptive over electric shock gates, spiked rooftops, poisons or other methods.

It’s estimated about 5,000 pigeons call the area home. Their population boom is blamed in part on people feeding the birds, including a woman known as the Bird Lady, who was responsible for dumping 25-pound bags of seed in 29 spots around Hollywood.

OvoControl P has been registered with the state Department of Pesticide Regulation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Developed by Rancho Santa Fe-based Innolytics, the substance contains nicarbazin, which interferes with an egg’s ability to develop or hatch, said Erick Wolf, Innolytics chief executive.

The pilot program was expected to show results within a year, and the Hollywood area’s pigeon population is expected to shrink by at least half by 2012, Dodson said.
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Los Angeles is working on being the second city in the state to successfully reduce pigeon and squirrel populations by using birth control rather than killing the animals.

The LA Times reports that squirrel birth control known as GonaCon, which succeeded in cutting squirrel's birth rate by 66% in 2004 in Berkeley, was piloted in Palisades Park but then thwarted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture which deemed the park too small to continue the program.

In Hollywood, though, according to the Times, officials have high hopes for reducing the pigeon population and their tendency to "roost on utility lines, tree branches and elsewhere, depositing their droppings on cars, buildings and even residents" with a birth control method called OvoControl P, which the pigeons eat from feeders.

The pilot program is expected to start showing results within a year, as long as the pigeons consume the kibble once a day. If proven as effective as in previous studies, Hollywood's pigeon population is expected to shrink by at least 50% by 2012, according to the contraceptive's manufacturer.
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Councilman Wants Birth Control for Pigeons
11/02/2007
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3806167

A councilman has a unique solution to reducing the pigeon population at the Staten Island ferry terminals: Put them on birth control. Councilman James Odd says OvoControl-P, a drug that renders pigeon eggs unhatchable, could help to thin out the pesky birds and thus the droppings they leave behind inside the terminals where they like to nest.

Oddo says the drug which would be mixed into standard seed has not yet been approved for pigeons by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. A similar product meant for geese was given the OK last month.

Source: Staten Island Advance.