CASE STUDY: Pigeons Nesting on Signage and Water Tower
Red Truck Beer Company of 1st Ave, Vancouver, BC, had a population of pigeons living on the signature 60 foot high water tower on the south side of the brewery. The water tower has the brewery’s Red Truck signage. The water tower is also positioned on top of the café. Pigeons were nesting on the metal beams under the water tank and perching on the cross members and large red letters of the sign. The result was pigeon crap everywhere below, especially on the café overhead glass skylight.
Bird Control Solution: To control this pigeon infestation required both bird spikes and pigeon trapping.
Deturd Bird Control rented a large 80-foot man lift to install bird spikes on the water tower. We had an early 6:00am start to get the installation completed before the café opened. Bird spike was installed on all cross members and Red Truck sign letters. Installation was completed before 11:00 am and huge Reliable Rentals man lift taken off site.
Bird spike was immediately very effective in preventing the birds perching on the water tower. However, the pigeons were still hanging around, perching on the window ledges and under cover areas. The second method was humane pigeon traps. Baited with grain and a water bottle, within a week 8 pigeons were caught. This greatly reduced the resident flock of 13 pigeons. At seeing the disappearance of 8 pigeons, the remaining 7 pigeons were now shy of the trap. What to do?
We took a break from trapping. We baited the pigeon traps and fixed the trap doors open for about 4 weeks. During this time, the seed was often replaced, the pigeons were starting to come and go again and more relaxed around the traps. After 4 weeks we set the traps again. A week went by and nothing. Finally, during the second week a pigeon entered the trap. The next morning there were 3 more in the traps. We had now removed 11 out of 13 pigeons. The final two pigeons learned this place was dangerous and permanently left.
It has been a year with no pigeons visiting Red Truck Beer Company. It is a good example showing how often there are several methods required to deter pigeons from living on a building or structure. There is seldom only one magic silver bullet to solve a bird/pigeon problem. In this case two methods were effective: bird repelling spikes and pigeon trapping.
