Urban (Wild) Animals

If you enjoy quirky animal stories, this L.A. Times article about pigeons on birth control is for you. The pigeon population has so overwhelmed Hollywood, the city began distributing birth control to keep the procreators in check. Reports Francisco Vara-Orta:

“The pilot program to get pigeons on the pill is well underway, with $50,000 in donations pledged from area business improvement districts and concerned residents, said Laura Dodson, president of the Argyle Civic Assn., the Hollywood neighborhood group leading the effort."

"Since August, some of the area's estimated 5,000 pigeons have been eating pill-shaped kibble known as OvoControl P from feeders on rooftops, making Hollywood the first area to try the contraceptive since it was given state approval in late July.”

Perhaps this method should also be used on the vulture culture currently overwhelming Bartow, Florida. Or in Samawah, Iraq, where farmers are clashing with starving wolves, which villagers believe are being driven to town by drought and food scarcity. While the reason for the wolves behavior hasn’t been verified independently (has global warming caused these droughts, one can’t help but wonder), it is safe to say the canines weren’t storming the village out of starvation a decade ago; the human-wolf relation has changed.

These examples are not the very first steps in a delicate pas de duex, but it would be hard not to say that current lifestyle choices haven’t pushed the duet toward its climax. People are ambivalent about the effects of putting the environment out to pasture for development, as is evident by the way in which we continue coating the earth in layers of cement while haphazardly filling the air with carbon dioxide. The result: In just one instance, we’ve spent $50,000 on birth control for pigeons. Yes, it’s a peaceable solution between animal rights groups and suburbia, but it’s also comical (and not just because it involves giving birds birth control, an initiative we can’t come to terms with for Homo sapiens). It’s laughable because we, through actions such as hyper-development and overfeeding, have caused the problem that we're spending money to fix; it’s like having to patch-up relations with your sibling because you started an argument out of boredom. Really, why do it in the first place? Until we create a more prescient, nature-oriented culture, expect to continue reading “quirky” environmental stories in the L.A. Times -- and finding birth control in the pigeon feed.