4
Jun
Pigeons Dying in Transport for London Nets
- posted at 12:53 PM
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- Comments (2)
A few weeks ago, a PETA supporter contacted us to say that pigeons were trapped, dead and dying in Transport for London (TfL) nets in Tower Bridge Road. It turns out that this is happening under bridges all over London.
So our campaigners worked hard to get TfL to sort out the situation at Tower Bridge, which after countless calls and e-mail exchanges, they finally did. Yet citywide, the pigeon control program seems to have made no progress. Apparently, TfL hasn’t replied to e-mails from the Met Police and not made any commitment to solve the London problem.
Countless pigeons and their unfledged babies, called squabs are trapped and the cruelty may, according to Pigeon Control and Advisory Service (PiCAS), violate the Animal Welfare Act 2006. “If TfL responded to transportation situations the way it has dealt with these starving birds, London would be at a complete standstill”, says our Managing Director Ingrid E Newkirk. “TfL is causing untold numbers of birds to die slow, agonising deaths even though humane and workable solutions are only a phone call away.”
We’re asking them to work with the PiCAS which offers solutions for humanely controlling pigeons - within the law. I’ll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, catch a load of this and (click to view):
It is unnecessary suffering, sealing in birds and leaving them to slowly starve to death. Having badly repaired nets so they get entangled and unable to get free. It can take a pigeon many days to die like this.
At this one bridge I know of, TfL sealed in the pigeons and basically left them to die there until concerned public saw how baby birds trapped inside were trying to be feed through the mesh by the parent birds outside. TfL would get away with sealing them in like this unless the public noticed and complained.
TfL and other organizations such as Net Work Rail need to treat these animals humanely. All they needed to do was to get PiCAS to help release the birds and it would’ve been quicker than the 6 plus weeks it’s taken now.
I’ve been told various things from the contractors involved along the lines of , Pigeons need to be starved for 5 days before they ‘find’ out how to use these exit cones…… pigeons usually get shot under bridges…if they don’t get out, they will be left…we cant check up high in bridge so any birds stuck up there will be left sealed in….
I saw a bunch of corpses behind the mesh at this bridge, many of them very close to the so called exit cones. I think that contractors don’t bother to put the mesh up properly, or to maintain it. When holes appear and outside pigeons find their way in, and become a nuisance, the answer is to just seal up the holes and leave them to die. Really like culling them by slow starvation.