Create Pigeon Police

New York City’s pigeon population is out of control and they are costing the city millions of dollars in lawsuits and lost revenues along commercial areas, especially in Queens.
They are not cute pets - they are merely flying rats. Dirty birds. Pesky polluters. They are scavengers who produce about 25 pounds of excrement each per year as the merchants and pedestrians along Roosevelt Avenue in Corona, Elmhurst and Jackson Heights can attest.
Storeowners along Liberty Avenue in Richmond Hill call them a nuisance to local business. Kish Kishun, owner of the Allstate Insurance Agency under the “A” train el there knows what keeps the pigeons there. “People are feeding the pigeons and it’s making a mess. It’s very terrible. I’m fed up,” Kishun said in a recent Queens Courier article.
The city and the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) contracts with licensed exterminators to put up “Needles,” netting and more recently at numerous stations, NYC Transit has installed “Shock Track,” which delivers a slight electric shock to keep the pigeons from congregating.
Shelton Stewart, 56, a former doorman was heading home from his job on September 21, 1998 when he slipped on a pile of slick pigeon poop on the steps at a Bronx subway station. His fall injured his back and broke his neck. A Bronx jury recently awarded Stewart just over $6 million for his injuries.
Pigeon poop-related damage to buildings, awnings, autos, businesses and recreational areas is estimated to cost over $1 billion a year. It has to be steam blasted from building surfaces and facades.
The government estimates that 80,000 pigeons call this city their home. They have no real value. With a natural life span of 30 years, city-dwelling birds only live between one to two years.
Due in part to their shortened life span, and to the many people who feed them, city pigeons reproduce rapidly. Because people feed them, they can peck 150 or so times and get the ounce of food they need each day. Energized and saved the chore of scavenging in the trash that might require thousands of pecks, the pigeons have time to breed more often and more successfully. They produce up to 12 squabs six times a year.
We must not feed them!
There is a bill currently before the City Council that would make feeding pigeons a crime punishable by up to a $1,000 fine. We say hurry up and pass this legislation.
As it stands now, only the Department of Health and its officers can issue fines of $75 to $150 to persons feeding pigeons for violation of the City Health Code Section 3.11 - Abatement of Nuisance.
Experts agree the only way to get the pigeons to move away is to stop feeding them. There must be a serious fine and the law must be enforceable by the - NYPD, DOT, Park police and Sanitation police - by every officer of enforcement we can throw at the problem.
It is time to get serious and stop those few who are feeding the flocks. We must stop wasting millions of tax dollars and rid our city of these Dirty Birds!