Barcelona has declared war on its pigeon population after hiring contractors to catch and kill them using special net catapults and carbon dioxide gas. Barcelona City Council has hired the team to catch and kill a quarter of the pigeons in the Catalonian capital after experts warned the population was 10 times higher than recommended in the old part of the city. The technique involves luring unsuspecting birds into a small area to feed. A large net is then ejected from a catapult with traps dozens of the pigeons in one shot. They are then taken away and asphyxiated.
The council ordered the extermination of 65,000 pigeons during the next 18 months to control the “plague” that is causing damage to the city’s monuments due to the corrosive droppings. A report said the birds, which number 6,500 per square km in Barcelona’s historic quarter, also spread diseases and cause allergies among residents and visitors to the city in northeastern Spain.
Victor Peracho, head of the city council’s pest control unit said that the insistence by some people to feed the birds, despite requests not to, coupled with the warm climate has caused the “population to become uncontrollable”. The move to step up extermination has caused concern among animal rights activists who believe the method is inhumane and ultimately ineffective. Carmen Mendez, president of the Association for the Defence of Animals, (ADDA) argued: “It’s cruel and in the end it will do nothing to curb the pigeon population.”
They argue that extermination methods only result in the pigeons laying more eggs to compensate. “If a quarter of the population is killed then within two years it will return to original density in a rebound effect.” The charity is instead calling for special lofts to be installed to encourage the birds to roost and where the population can be controlled by taking away newly laid eggs and putting fake ones in their place.
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