FARMINGTON — Pigeons are divisive birds: People either love them or hate them. They either feed them or refer to them as “rats with wings.”
Regardless of which side you perch on, a quick drive downtown looking at roofs makes one thing very apparent: Farmington has a large pigeon population.
For one Farmington neighborhood, a flock of pigeons has become enough of a nuisance that residents complained to the City Council, resulting in an ordinance that will give code enforcement and animal control officers more teeth in dealing with the problem.
The problem is that one resident loves birds and has spent the past several years feeding a flock of pigeons that just keeps growing.
“For the last couple of years, pigeons have just been building up,” said Jennifer Briggs, whose grandmother, Joanne Hammond, lives next door to the flock feeder. “They pretty much live there, and we can get upwards of 50 flying around and perching on our roof.”
According to Farmington’s self-proclaimed “bird lady,” Lynn Hood, who saves birds on a regular basis and has her own flock of doves near her downtown business, 50 pigeons is a big flock.
“I can only imagine how annoying that must be,” Hood said. “Birds poop every 20 minutes, so that is just a ton of waste. It’s nasty, and I could understand that it would be overwhelming.”
For Hammond, it’s more than overwhelming. The buildup of excrement means she doesn’t use her patio or go outside.
“We have pigeon poop everywhere,” Briggs said. “My grandma just redid her backyard and patio, and they are full of feces. We really don’t mind birds, but these come in such huge flocks.”
Hammond wants to be able to enjoy her patio. “I do like birds,” Hammond said. “But not when they make a mess on my property till I don’t want to go out on the patio, because who knows what might come down off the roof.”
Briggs and Hammond are also worried about the possible health risks.
According to Hood, it’s a problem that might be difficult to get rid of even if the neighbor stops feeding the pigeons.
“The birds that are around here generally stick to one area,” Hood said. “The same birds, the same flocks, they pick a building, pick a place they like to flock, and they don’t mix or leave.”
The council began the process to adopt the new ordinance with some misgivings. Councilor Dan Darnell wondered if mitigation was possible.
“It’s a little extreme that the property owner is not willing to comply with our or the neighbor’s requests,” Assistant City Manager Bob Campbell told the council. “It’s staff’s opinion that an ordinance is needed.”
In the end, the council voted 3 to 1 to begin the process of adopting an ordinance. Councilor Mary Fischer was the dissenting vote.
“I think that this is a case of government over-reaching itself,” Fischer said after the meeting. “The way that is written, they could search your house for feeding pigeons.”
Until the City Council decision, there was nothing animal control could do. Farmington didn’t have a pigeon control ordinance on the books.
“We get complaints periodically,” said Animal Control Director Barbara Yarborough. “It’s a real toughie because they aren’t their pigeons, they just like to see the birds, so we can’t treat them as if they are owners of the problem animal.”
According to Yarborough, animal control doesn’t usually handle pigeon complaints.
“As far as the department goes, we don’t handle them because we don’t have any way or means to do that,” Yarborough said. “We have found that pigeon traps don’t work too well.”
The city’s ordinance defines a pigeon nuisance as “an excessive congregation of pigeons.”
The ordinance makes it a violation to feed feral pigeons and prohibits harboring and allowing pigeon waste to accumulate.
— This article appeared on page C1 of the Albuquerque Journal
