Is it legal to shoot pigeons

Is it legal to shoot pigeons?

Animal welfare activists have complained to Wimbledon organisers and the police over the culling of pigeons. Is it against the law for marksmen to take out the feral birds?

Pigeons get a rough ride. Vilified as "rats with wings," rock doves - as they are properly known - are the bird the British love to hate.

Common complaints range from well-aimed droppings to dive-bombing. After some tennis players complained of the latter, the All England Club called in marksmen with rifles to disperse the birds ahead of the Wimbledon tournament.
Now People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) has gone to the police, claiming infringement of the Animal Welfare Act 2006. Vice-president Bruce Friedrich says shooting pigeons is not just cruel, but illegal.

Although the act protects the pigeon as it is "of a kind which is commonly domesticated in the British Islands", legitimate pest control is not regarded as causing unnecessary suffering, says a spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

And the Metropolitan Police plans to take no further action.

The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 states that it is an offence to kill any bird - including pigeons - unless a licence is held, but section one allows exemption if an organisation or individual complies with general licence regulations.

"This would require a specific public health risk to be identified and other non-lethal methods to be used to disperse the birds before taking the decision to shoot them," a Met Police spokeswoman says.

The All England Club says it shot the birds as a last resort, and the birds posed a health and safety risk to players.

Humane control

Non-lethal methods recommended by the Pigeon Control Advisory Service, an independent bird control consultancy, involve population control.
Hawks are used by the All England Club and in Trafalgar Square

Methods include pigeon lofts - large nesting boxes from which eggs can be removed - or egg oiling, which deprives fertilised eggs of oxygen and prevents baby birds developing and hatching.

Once such methods have been exhausted, killing the birds is allowed under the general licence exemption or individuals can apply to Natural England for a licence.

Prosecutions under the wildlife act are rare, and the punishment tends to be a fine.

The Clash's Paul Simonon and Topper Headon were prosecuted for shooting pigeons with an air rifle in 1978, but the pair were done for criminal damage as the dead birds were privately owned racing pigeons.

So feral pigeons can legally be shot. But here's the rub - the dip in numbers is only temporary.

Picas director Emma Haskall says that killing adult pigeons favours younger birds in the feeding flock that would otherwise have a poorer chance of survival, so numbers are back to pre-cull figures within six to eight weeks.

She adds that pest control contractors recommend shooting because it is highly profitable: "They want rolling contracts."

Nor does she rate other lethal measures such as poison bait, cage-traps and using birds of prey such as hawks - a method favoured by Wimbledon organisers and the former London mayor Ken Livingstone, who faced off against angry activists in the Trafalgar Square pigeon crackdown of 2003.

But the "flying rats" remain a fixture, a draw for pigeon fanciers and tourists keen to indulge their Mary Poppins fantasies.

Ross Duncan Pest Control

Aberdeen , Aberdeenshire Tel. 01651 882301