Barcelona uses eagles and falcons to scare away pigeons. The City Council is carrying out a pilot test of about eight weeks in the district of Les Corts aimed at reducing the exaggerated overpopulation of these blessed birds in a bloodless way. If the results are worthwhile, the initiative could be launched in other neighborhoods.
No, the birds of prey at the Consistory will not take good care of the pigeons as the seagulls do, in a way that is as daily as it is bloody. The municipal technicians will give the pigeons an advantage, they will release their eagles and falcons at a safe distance, enough for the pigeons to see them coming from afar, get scared and leave. The idea is that they convince themselves that the place where they were so comfortable is no longer safe, that it is better to look for sustenance elsewhere.
And many will wonder what we gain by forcing the pigeons to move. The technicians respond that in this way the population is concentrated and the specimens are forced to compete among themselves for food. Furthermore, a pigeon carcass does not transmit any message to its fellow pigeons. If a pigeon sees the remains of another roadkill, it does not pay more attention to the vehicles, but it is capable of perceiving the fear of its peers. And if he sees another person suddenly afraid because she senses the presence of a threat that she already knows, she also takes flight and leaves.
In any case, this initiative, like the distribution of contraceptive feed, is still palliative in nature. The overpopulation of pigeons derives mainly from the abundance of food. The pigeons found so much food everywhere in so many places in the city that the natural selection of individuals was completely bastardized. In this way they all survive, the best and the worst adapted, the smartest and the dumbest, the strongest and the weakest. And all this does nothing other than degenerate the species, impoverish its genetic legacy. Plus, so much starch makes them feel horrible. The Barcelona pigeon is a fat, dumb and prone to illness pigeon. In a natural ecosystem, in fact in her lifelong ecosystem, she would never grow old.
Put yourself in the plumage of a pigeon, why are you going to rummage through one tree after another in search of fruit if you have an abundance of chips, plates of paella and pizza crusts within reach of your beak? Do you know how tiring it is to fly from one tree to another? Identifying the most nutritious fruits and seeds and extracting them is more complicated. The pigeons of Barcelona became reckless, trusting, unwary... The remains of the drinks on the terraces constitute an entire free buffet.
Hence, the pigeons stay at its side waiting for people to leave. Or not. Some pigeons no longer have problems trying to stick their beaks in front of your nose. In some shopping centers they have already established the obligation to clear the tables as soon as customers leave. And this heat also contributes to the fact that most of them are dazed, half-dazed.
The crux of the matter is that pigeons find food everywhere. In Barcelona it is prohibited to feed wild fauna, such as wild boars, for example, but not to feed pigeons. What is prohibited is throwing food on the ground. So municipal civic agents try to convince people not to feed these birds. In the case of tourists who want to be photographed in Plaza Catalunya, it is more or less simple. But among the large pigeon feeders there are many people with problems, people who feel alone and who find comfort in this custom. In these cases it is much more difficult to convince them.
