Urban pigeons are one of the most common wildlife management challenges in cities. Humane fertility control programs offer welfare-positive alternatives to lethal control.
Urban pigeon welfare is affected by both direct persecution and the chronic challenges of urban life. Lethal control programs using poisoning, trapping and culling cause acute suffering to individual birds. Spikes and netting that exclude pigeons from favored roosting sites displace rather than help welfare. Pigeons injured by fishing line, entanglement and other urban hazards experience significant suffering. Fertility control programs that replace fertile eggs with dummy eggs, or that use baited contraceptives, maintain pigeon populations in stable territories without the welfare costs of lethal control. These approaches also prevent the constant population cycling caused by lethal control, stabilizing the urban pigeon community in a more humane equilibrium. The evidence for their effectiveness is growing from city programs across southern Europe.