Defending my birds!!
:flames: :flames: :flames:
Feral pigeons are not rats with wings!! This term can unfortunately be traced to a comment in a Woody Allen film.
What do the experts say?
The real experts in the field all agree that there is no tangible health risk to human beings from contact with pigeons: Mike Everett, spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said, in The Big Issue Magazine, February 2001: "The whole 'rats with wings' thing is just emotive nonsense. There is no evidence to show that they (pigeons) spread disease.”
The Chief Veterinary Officer, when addressing the House of Lords in 2000 on the issue of pigeons in Trafalgar Square was asked if the large number of pigeons in the Square represented a health risk to human beings. The Chief Veterinary Officer told The House that in his opinion they did not.
Charlotte Donnelly, an American bird control expert told the Cincinnati Environment Advisory Council in her report to them: "The truth is that the vast majority of people are at little or no health risk from pigeons and probably have a greater chance of being struck by lightening than contracting a serious disease from pigeons."
Guy Merchant, Director of The Pigeon Control Advisory Service (PICAS) says, when talking about the transmission of disease by pigeons: "If we believed everything we read in the media about pigeons and the farcical propaganda distributed by the pest control industry we would ever leave our homes. The fact of the matter is that there is probably a greater risk to human health from contact with domestic pets such as cats, dogs and caged birds."
David A Palmer (B.V.Sc., M.R.C.V.S) said in an article entitled 'Pigeon Lung Disease Fatality and Health Risk from Ferals': "Obviously, since all these Allergic Extrinsic Alveolitis disease syndromes rely on the involved person having a very specific allergy before any disease, involving respiratory distress and very unusually death, can possibly be seen, it really makes absolute nonsense for a popular daily newspaper to suggest that pigeons present a health hazard and presumably need eliminating for the well-being of the nation’s health.”
David Taylor BVMS FRCVS FZS: “In 50 years professional work as a veterinary surgeon I cannot recall one case of a zoonosis in a human that was related to pigeons. On the other hand I know of, and have seen, examples of human disease related to contact with dogs, cats, cattle, monkeys, sheep, camels, budgies, parrots, cockatoos, aquarium fish and even dolphins, on many occasions.”
The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, the New York City Department of Health, and the Arizona Department of Health all agree that diseases associated with pigeons present little risk to people. “We have never documented a pigeon to human transmission in the state of Arizona,” said Mira J Leslie, Arizona’s state public health veterinarian.
If there was any real chance of pigeons spreading disease to human beings we would see epidemics amongst pigeon fanciers that race pigeons and spend much of their time in dusty pigeon lofts. We would also see all those involved with the rehabilitation of pigeons in wildlife hospitals worldwide dropping like flies. The facts speak for themselves. Pigeons do not spread disease and if we need to get rid of pigeons on the basis of the fact that there is 'potential' for them to pass on diseases to human beings then we need to get rid of all feral birds. At the end of the day 99% of so called 'pigeon problems' are, in reality, people problems. It is human beings that create the waste upon which pigeons feed and if we cleaned up our act we would have considerably less pigeons to worry about. So is it really the feral pigeon that is vermin?
http://www.savethepigeons.org/disease.html
Nanci
