July 31, 2007
Metro: We Didn't Mean for You to Find Out We Kill Birds
After word got around Sunday night that several Metro stations had been temporarily closed due to dozens of dead birds appearing around them, Metro officials spent the day yesterday trying to figure out how to explain away the fact that the mistake their contractor had made was not that they had poisoned the birds -- merely that they had poisoned the birds at the wrong time of day, and didn't have a chance to clean up the carcasses before commuters showed up. In today's Post we see that news traveled quickly to the Humane Society of the United States, who quickly contacted Metro officials and said they'd like to help them find humane ways to keep birds out of stations. Now Metro says they will consider changing their bird-killing policies.
A Metro spokesperson explained that they contract with a local company, Dixon's Pest Control, on an as-needed basis and only as "a last resort" to get rid of birds after customers and employees complain about droppings. The agency says it also uses netting and spikes to control the bird population. Of three other major transit systems polled by the Post, none of them said they use poison to get rid of birds.
It's interesting to note the different standards we apply to different kinds of pests. No doubt far fewer people would object to poisoning rats, which are also a big problem for the city, but pigeons, which carry just as many diseases and leave behind even bigger messes -- well we can't just go killing them, now can we? This isn't to suggest that we think Metro was right. If there are humane alternatives to keeping birds out of Metro stations, then they should be put in place. But based on the information that's come out since Sunday, it looks as though Metro has been quietly killing pigeons and other small birds when they felt they needed to for at least 15 years. Is it really that no one knew about this practice for all that time, or is it more likely that those who are objecting now are just upset about having seen a bunch of dead birds?
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Humane /inhumane, great. But to the extent we can not spread compounds toxic to your fellow vertebrate animals around our public transit spaces, I bet we will look back on that and be glad we did.
I'm no environmental alarmist, but things that are designed as poisons should be like like plan C, not plan A in public spaces; we frequently get the testing wrong or don't do enough, or you hand it off to a contractor and they hire a 19 year old to do it who doesn't wear his facemask, or whoops! Turns out it's totally benign (unless you're pregnant) or totally benign (unless you're exposed every day on the way into work.) I don't think there's anyhting else you *can* do for rats, but also their real -world disease impact on urban humans is more significant.
Kudos to the ASPCA for a rational/productive/constructive response. I think they have a point.
Also, ummm..."Is it really that no one knew about this practice for all that time,"
Yeah, how would we have found that out, local blog that takes pride in its detailed attention to local politics and transit policy?
They should just use rubber snakes. Pigeons are very afraid of them and will stay very far away from them.
It's true. I've tried it after I heard it on Paul Harveys "The rest of the Story".
BTW- the tip was sent to him by someone from Saint Mary's County MD. Way to go smibs!
I suggest a more cost-effective pidgeon solution would be either dried rice or Alka Seltzer, for pure entertainment value if nothing else.
Humans leave far more shit lying around the District than birds do, but I don't see anyone poisoning them....
saw a bunch of dead sparrows at the metro at PG county. It's especially gruesome when cars run over their little bodies.
BostonRay says: I can feel the genuine electric fear of the local populace of "educated wunderkind" in DC of this avian dropping menace. There are, in fact, documented illnesses from Histoplasmosis and Cryptococcosis that hit HIV positive types with fatigue and fever. However, the real illness of truly epidemic proportions is Psittacosis that has struck 50 bird owners and HIV infected in the US since 1996 with fever and rash. Whew! Hide me! I'm scared! Wait till the professional bansturbators at the city council get a load of this. Pigeon Ban Signs along with No Smoking Signs. Of course, all these fungal diseases also exist in all soil, but details, details.
No documented deaths from smoking = Ban
50 documented flus from pigeon dropping = Kill them and ban them after the're dead.
Plantphobic and birdphobic - whattacity
And You want the right to vote!!!?
Oh Yeah, you also shut down the subway.
not to get off topic, guest #7, but you really don't think there are documented deaths from smoking? i'm willing to bet that smoke -- even secondhand, kills way more people than pigeons. THAT's why there's a smoking ban, no raging paranoia involved.
First off, of course I'm not comfortable with poison in a public space with no signage/warnings...
Secondly, I'm wondering if Metro is guilty of killing birds (other than the pigeons, which are non-migratory) who are covered under the Migratory Bird Act of 1918. Seriously. Find one migratory bird in the carcass pile and Metro's got some real explaining to do.
The original 1918 statute implemented the 1916 Convention between the U.S. and Great Britain (for Canada) for the protection of migratory birds. Later amendments implemented treaties between the U.S. and Mexico, the U.S. and Japan, and the U.S. and the Soviet Union (now Russia).
Specific provisions in the statute include:
Establishment of a Federal prohibition, unless permitted by regulations, to "pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, attempt to take, capture or kill, possess, offer for sale, sell, offer to purchase, purchase, deliver for shipment, ship, cause to be shipped, deliver for transportation, transport, cause to be transported, carry, or cause to be carried by any means whatever, receive for shipment, transportation or carriage, or export, at any time, or in any manner, any migratory bird, included in the terms of this Convention . . . for the protection of migratory birds . . . or any part, nest, or egg of any such bird." (16 U.S.C. 703)
Isn't there something we can spray on the kids who spend their ride home from school swearing at the top of their lungs, eating half their value meals and then throwing the rest on the floor?
Are the lice carried by the pigeons protected as well?
squeals! guest #10 i'm with you! lets set out poison twinkies, dorritos and sodas for the monsters. at last, a metro ride free from mommies little mistake....sigh. one can only hope.
"I'm no environmental alarmist, but things that are designed as poisons should be like like plan C, not plan A in public spaces"
It was a last resort, after things like spikes and netting don't work.
Wow! I didn't know that pigeons left droppings that consisted of empty 40 bottles, chip bags, cigarettes, and rubbers. I'm so glad that this pigeon pogrom will rid our beautiful city streets of these eyesores.
Anonymous Idiots 10 & 12 - You are a pair of cowardly little worms for not even having the sack to sign your name (or any name) to your posts.
DCist Staff - You pulled Monkey's posts (that were made in jest I might add) about glory holes and fisting with watches yesterday, how about cleaning up nonsense like the above. The assclowns above aren't joking and we all know it.
BostonRay says: To guest #8, We would be very pleased to review any and all "documented deaths" due to smoking and/or "second hand smoke". Please submit them (documents, death certificates) to forces.org for appropriate verification. Also please copy the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and it's owned and operated American Cancer/Lung/Heart Foundations that claims 400,000 but has been unable to document a single one. I mean every word about no documented deaths due to smoking. They do not exist. "Secondhand smoke" is nothing more than a phrase invented by Adolph Hitler.
A medical examiner during an autopsy, with all the high tech stuff, cannot determine through visual or lab results, whether a person smoked or did not smoke. I know it's raging paranoia due to pharmaceutical marketing propaganda. Nothing more.
PS: Hollywood is trying birth control on pigeons now. Why don't we put crocs on their three toed feet and make them take the escalator? e-w-w-w!
Actually, people do object to kill rats. There were complaints a while back about people taking their Jack Russels rat hunting in Dupont Circle. At least, one group tried to stop it because it was cruel to the rats.
Um, #9, passenger pigeons, carolina parakeets, and waterfowl were the impetus for that ban. "Rock Doves" aren't even native to the US. Aside from feeding city-dwelling falcons, they are a blight. If DC wasn't one big effing brownfield, I'd support using nets to catch them and sell them to the restaurant trade.
Come to think of it, why don't we just work out some kind of reciprocity deal with China. Their dog food and fish for our rats with wings.
guest #5.
WASA has been poisioning people in the district for years now!
#17- Nature can only be red of tooth and claw through the liberal use of nail polish. Hadn't you heard? Oh, and I'm willing to bet that a significant portion of the push back over dogs hunting rats came from the dog-loving crowd. When will the felinophiles ever enter this brave new world?
BostonRay says: RE: Pigeon Lice - they are host specific and infect only pigeons and sometimes sparrows. There are two kinds of mites though, the northern fowl mite and the chicken mite, they can be an irritant at worst, but only from direct contact. Wash your hands with soap & water they're gone.
So why are we killing mass quantities of harmless defenseless birds & can pets get access to this poison? Very interesting question on the migratory bird issue.
I was going to suggest that a corollary to Godwin's Law was that DC blogs love complaining about the smoking ban (which has nothing to do with pigeons). But then guest 16 beat me to it. dang.
Personally, not crying for the pigeons.
Didn't another D.C. blog have a "fuck starlings!" post recently? I'm kind of the same mind: screw the birds. But it would be nice to know whether I was walking through a cloud of poison on a way home from carousing, or possibly if I worked an early/late shift, or if I liked to jog really early, or etc.
I, uhhh, I'm an EMT and pretty much with just a stethoscope I can tell if someone's been smoking their whole life.
But I'm sure BostonRay has a variety of websites to tell me that my phenomenological experience is wrong / corrupted / a lie / a failure on my part to exert critical thinking skills like his vs. the liberal paranoia that runs the Earth, that someone made a huge amount of money or something from making me think so, that I am just not as smart as the people who've "seen through" all the lies of 50 years of medicine, etc., and that these people's emphysema (etc.) is purely coincidental.
(BTW, BostonRay, you should get a login - because otherwise nothing stops someone from posting with your name but writing something you don't agree with...)
BostonRay:
"Documented deaths" from smoking and/or second-hand smoke come in the form of deaths from emphysema and lung cancer, throat cancer, and other laryngeo-esophageal tumors. True, no one has ever died because they smoked one cigarette. But no one has ever died because they touched pigeon poop either. Cigarettes, like animal waste, are carriers for substances like parasites or carcinogens that can make people deathly ill.
Furthermore, it's true that an autopsy can't tell the difference between someone who has smoked one or two cigarettes a year and someone who hasn't, in the same way that it can't tell the difference between someone who has eaten zero meals from McDonalds and someone who has had a big mac on the first day of school every year. BUT autopsies and other medical exams show a clear difference between people who routinely shove lots of cholesterol-laden fats into their bodies in the form of clogged arteries, not to mention larger overall shapes and other health problems like Type-Two diabetes. In the same way, autopsies can CLEARLY show the difference in the lungs of someone who smokes regularly. I've seen it -- it's not pretty, and this is even before tumors start growing. The accelerants turn the lung tissue a grey-white color, the blood vessels die, and all the little chambers that hold oxygen shrivel up.
I really hope you're kidding...
oh my god, the Dixons are really a wonderful older local couple and I hope people use them for rat abatement even after this situation.
Yeah, sure. But Adcock is better. Even if they are responsible for the Tidal Basin not being infested by stanky old beavers, aka keeping its cherry (trees).
Note to self:
Crotchfruit and Pat Buchanan eating poo = OK
Glory holes and anal fisting with watches = not OK
BostonRay says: Great Job WOV - a diagnosis through a stethoscope and with EMT training on top of that. Spare me your assistance. I guess I will have to dump years of intense medical training in favor of your 100 hour training program geared to transport people. That stethoscope I'm sure can tell the difference between the sound of blood and all other bodily fluids produced from all causes (LOL). Can it tell what the fluid is from? Thats right-smoking-huh? Can it tell if a pigion is dead? What do we need doctors for now that we got EMTs with stethoscopes! Tell Hillary to dump her national health program. Spare me synthetic experts! We got enough of them on Capital Hill. You got facts OK. BS not OK.
BostonRay also says: People, the whole point of my showing the facts here is that WMATA reacted to some knumbskulls complaint and killed the pigons. There was no risk, no danger, no problem, no deaths or sickness! Just some idiots perception and suposition that a "dire" problem existed. Correctly the Hazmat Teams responded because bird and animal deaths indicate possible chemical/biological agents. How much did that cost? If pigeon droppings were a problem then we would have dead roofers all over this town. This is what happens when the monkeys run the zoo. You cannot run this city reacting to every idiots complaint. Someone has to start telling the fools to get lost when they start their synthetic whinning. Hypochondria is a mental illness by definition after all. I'll bet this all started with a single phone call.
BostonRay, an EMT has almost no medical training and is therefore no expert? My point exactly.
(Spare you synthetic experts and their BS? Dude, you've just brought on a mandatory medical credentials check on your own part. (And, again, in part to facilitate that, get an login, I'm not even sure if I'm arguing with one person))
Your claim = even a pathologist can not determine lung damage from smoking. Mine - anyone who can work a stethoscope (even, freely admitted, very very lightly trained EMTs) will gradually as they do more and more calls notice "Jesus H. When ever I run a house that smells like a 10 year smoked in hotel room, that person's lungs sound like a downmarket aquarium pump, and/or they will be on in home oxygen therapy. Corollary: of the people you encounter who ARE on in home oxygen therapy, basically 100% career smokers." No diagnosis, (positing causation,) just noting correlation - again a distinction (like the one between Capital and Capitol) that makes me suspicious of your credentials.
You're saying: "WOV is no medical expert". WOV is saying: "I'm no medical expert - anyone who can work a $10 stethoscope and visits enough old smokers and old nonsmokers will start to notice a pattern."
So, you're asking me to disbelieve my own firsthand evidence, and to disregard the concurrence of the entire medical establishment are idiots / liars? That's a tough claim - one I'd ahve to have some reason to respect or listen to the claimant to accept. Until then, asked to assume which of two parties is the easily snowed idiot with no critical thinking skills, I'm going to assume it's the guy screaming profanities and calling everyone else in the world a numbskull and an idiot. Call it Wov's Razor.
(n.b. I completely agree with you about killing the pigeons - giant screwup, expense, effort, significant potential real health problems all to solve an apparent non-issue. But people probably called in about the droppings just because they're gross to look at...the whole hypochondria-triggered city response story, while highly pleasing to a conservative mind, is one you just sort of synthesized here yourself apparently to get mad about.)