Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!wuarchive!uunet!mcsun!ukc!educ-isis!teexmmo
From: teexmmo@ioe.lon.ac.uk (Matthew Moore)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Winged rats and other introduced bird pests
Summary: Get a Hawk!
Message-ID: <1990Sep13.172006.21612@ioe.lon.ac.uk>
Date: 13 Sep 90 17:20:06 GMT
References: <133704@kean.ucs.mun.ca>
Reply-To: teexmmo@ioe.lon.ac.uk (Matthew Moore)
Organization: Institute of Education University of London
Lines: 25

David Graham) writes:

stuff about pigeons...

>
>All this has moved me to think about the three great introduced bird 
>species in North America; all successful, none now considered 
>especially handsome, two normally considered active pests (Rock Dove
>and Starling, of course). What do you suppose prompts the kind of
>change in attitude towards birds that would make people bring in the
>three big European imports which now infest our cities? I mean, if I
>were emigrating from Europe, I wouldn't choose House Sparrows or the
>other two to bring with me (gimme Merops apiaster any day :-)). Were
>these birds chosen simply because they were commensals of man in
>Europe? because they were easily carried from one continent to
>another? Anybody know? 
>

Here in sunny London there are press reports that in Covent Garden, (a
touristy area in the West End), the local authority has hired a hawk
(with its keeper) and they go prowling together every morning. The nut
cutlet brigade has been placated by claims that the (evident)
reduction in pigeon numbers has been achieved because the birds are
afraid, and have gone elsewhere. Its only occasionally that the hawk
actually catches a pigeon.