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?