Taking Contrarianism To New Heights

Even with the best ideas there is always someone who wants to naysay:

The Greenwich Village Pigeon Club use lighters printed with their logo as their business card because “lighters change hands more than anything else.”

Although the club brought the lighters to a City Hall rally in November against legislation proposed by Brooklyn Councilmember Simcha Felder that is aimed at curtailing the pigeon population, they were not as popular as the T-shirts that read “I [heart] NY” followed by a red pigeon symbol.

“It wasn’t really a lighter crowd at City Hall,” said Jackie Mock, 21, a founding member of the group.

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“This club started as a fun experiment, but it turned into something a lot bigger,” said Mock. “The pigeon ban really brought us out into the open. In a way it is the first really serious thing we have done.”

Felder’s proposed legislation recommends creating a “pigeon czar” to oversee the pigeon population, fining people for feeding pigeons, feeding the pigeons birth control, “dovecotting” — or replacing pigeon eggs with fakes — and reintroducing hawks and falcons into the urban habitat, as well as experimenting with the use of robotic hawks.

“There is a real sci-fi twinge to the methods proposed,” said Millholland. “Releasing hawks to kill the pigeons seems a lot worse than just having pigeons. And replacing the eggs with fake eggs is just mean.”

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Millholland said that, in her view, the pigeon ban does seem like a “publicity thing” for Felder. Felder did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Similar attempts at pigeon population control have been enacted in London, Basel, Switzerland and Los Angeles.

“We got an e-mail from someone in Germany who said that he liked coming to New York because, unlike where he lived, there are no laws against feeding pigeons here,” said Mock.