UPDATED: The High Cost of Pigeons!

Okay, it's been a while... but you can always count on Venetian pigeons to raise their ugly, vermin-ridden little heads sooner or later for a good blog post! :-)

NEWS. Last week in Ravenna, there was a conference about a common subject in Venice -- the overpopulation of pigeons. The findings of the congress contradicted what the municipality of Venice concluded a month ago that the solution to the problem was to abolish the sale of grain in St. Mark's Square. The only substantial remedy, in the opinion of the experts, is the distribution of grain containing sterilising drugs. During the same conference, it was announced that research conducted in eight Italian towns calculated that, just for cleaning and repairs, each pigeon costs the town about thirty euros a year, not including health-related expenses. Venice, currently, has more than 70,000 pigeons.

(from Buongiorno Venezia)

For those who are counting, that's more pigeons residents than Venetian human residents left in the city...

(Coincidence???)

UPDATED: This just in...

A centuries-old tradition - throwing rice at the bride and groom as they emerge from the church ceremonies to ensure the newlyweds' fertility and happiness - is to be made illegal in Venice, the romantic Italian city of gondolas and canals...

The mayor of the historic city has taken this step because, whatever it may be doing in terms of ensuring the fertility of the bride and groom, the rice is causing an explosion in the local pigeon population. The 120,000 feathered creatures now outnumber the local human population by two to one - and their droppings and messy nesting habits are destroying the historic Baroque and Renaissance architecture which - along with the canals and colourful gondoliers - are the city's major tourist attractions. Feeding the pigeons in St Mark's Square, another popular tourist occupation regarded as a ‘must' photo opportunity by many visitors will also become illegal.

"Throwing rice at the bride and groom brings hordes of pigeons who then wait around until the next ceremony. The situation has become unbearable," says Marco Agostini, the city's police chief.

And it is not only the corrosive droppings that are damaging the city's buildings, according to the city's Superintendent of Architectural and Cultural Heritage. "The birds attack the marble and stucco facades of many of the buildings to get at scraps of food and birdseed blown onto and into the buildings," says Renata Codello. "Enough is enough. The studies we have commissioned show that the pigeons are causing incalculable damage to our artistic and architectural heritage," she said. Attempts to lace birdseed with contraceptive chemicals had no affect, she added. he
pigeons were carrying out attacks "like kamikaze pilots, or something out of the Hitchcock horror film ‘The Birds'," said a recent city council report.

Residents were banned from leaving grain or bread for the pigeons ten years ago; however, as part of the city's tourist package, 18 vendors were licensed to sell birdseed in St Mark's Square. Those licensees have been revoked, though the authorities have promised to find alternative employment for the 18 who will lose their present livelihoods.

(via VOX)

Well, lemme tell you... lots of little old ladies still feed those pigeons their day-old bread, and I'm not so sure that those feed vendors are going to go quietly. (They never have before!!)

"Venice's Pigeons Almost Totally Gone"??

(A sixties' ad that was done with pigeons by spreading corn just right in Saint Mark's Square)

"After several months of battling thousands of pigeons hovering over Piazza San Marco, Venice has declared victory. From 20,000 the canal city's pigeon population has dwindled to less than 1,000."

That's what the "All Headline News" site reported on Thursday. Can it even possibly be true??

NOPE!

Turns out the AHN did what a lot of tourists do all the time, and that's confuse Saint Mark's Square with Venice itself.

As any longtime fan of Venice and/or this blog can tell you, San Marco's pigeons aren't quaint; they're gross. And their numbers in the square had swelled to 20,0000 because of the corn vendors there, making that pigeon population a veritable petri dish for salmonella and respiratory disease. So, the fact that EACH pigeon produces an estimated 26 pounds of guano annually (MORE THAN A QUARTER OF A TON COLLECTIVELY?!) which was burying and eating away at the peerless historical monuments there, was really only a (powerful) side concern.


(The video doesn't seem quite so delightful NOW, does it? Yuk!)

Hence, the Venetian city government's decision this past year to ban selling corn in the square and thankfully for once they had the stones to stick to it!

As a result, the population of pigeons IN PIAZZA SAN MARCO ALONE is now estimated to be 1000 instead of 20,000. (Although, as one reader on Venessia.com put it, "would you be happy if somebody said that now there are only 1000 rats in the piazza?")

But, let me tell you, it's not that 19,000 pigeons have starved to death since May. They clearly just went elsewhere. Which means that the city as a whole may still be laboring under what was the highest pigeon-population density in the world: more than 3 per resident (or nearly 200,000) in LITTLE MORE THAN THREE SQUARE MILES!

So, don't lament the untimely passing of those poor darling Venetian flying rats just yet. But, for God's sake and Venice's, please don't feed them either!

"The Straight Poop on Pigeons"

Any great lover of Venice tends to also be a great hater of pigeons! Yet no one can argue that they aren't one of the most successful species in the city. Scientific American gives us some reasons why at Superdove!: The Straight Poop on Pigeons: Scientific American Podcast

(Posted using ShareThis)

Yikes... The Birds!

"Recently, following a research report from the veterinary sector of USL, the local health authority, the most pressing problem in Venice has become the pigeons. Eight birds out of ten are carriers of toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that can occasionally be fatal, while others transmit salmonella, fungal diseases, or ticks. According to the monthly tests, their health is getting worse. The primary reason is related to their excessive number -- more than 70,000 -- which is greater than the human population of Venice. In the opinion of experts, the maximum should be less than 30,000 but, to obtain this result, as has been said many times before, it would be necessary to eliminate the St. Mark's street vendors who sell grain to tourists who, in turn, feed it to the birds."

(from Buongiorno Venezia - The News from Venice)

On a side note, strangely, I seem to post my rare news items on Venice's notorious pigeons on the same day each year...

Insider's Guide to Venice: Coffee in Piazza San Marco

Napoleon called Saint Mark's Square the finest drawing room in Europe. And it is lovely (if you don't count the pigeons!)

But if you sit outside at Florian's or another cafe' in the piazza, expect to pay through the nose for the view!

(Just a note: on those very rare occasions when I've gone to Florian's, I prefer to spend the money soaking up the ambience in the same eighteenth-century coffee shop where apparently Casanova decided to grab a quick coffee just after his escape from the prisons of the Republic, just before he high-tailed it out of town...)

An alternative? Facing St. Mark's Basilica is the Correr Museum, perfect if you're an afficionado of Venetian art and history (because there's a little bit of absolutely everything there about Venice), or else enjoy museums but are only visiting Venice and don't plan to see other places in Italy (precisely because, in everything about Venice, there's a taste of a lot that's Italian!)

Within the museum is a little cafe', and the coffee will cost you nearly twice as much if you sit at a table than if you drink it standing up at the bar, but for something like four or five euros, you'll be paying a very small fraction of what you'd pay down in the square!

Not to mention that you'll have an even better, breakthtaking view (pictured above), and be out of the elements and away from those nasty pigeons.

(And, yes, they are nasty!!)

Newsflash: "Pigeon lovers defy Venice feed ban in early morning raid"

Because nasty disease-ridden pigeons deserve to be overfed beyond all measure of natural selection! More at Pigeon lovers defy Venice feed ban | Italy Magazine

Newsflash: "Officials in Venice warn tourists: Please don't feed the pigeons!"

Apparently the pigeons aren't the only things dirty in San Marco...

Apparently this guy has been following women around the square and furtively videoing over 3000 butts over the last two years! More at BBC NEWS World Europe Furtive Venice snapper arrested

Venice in the News...

"'Real Time Rome' project debuts in Venice" (Cool!)

Venice Wants to Clean Up Lagoon Pigeons (Thank God!)

Memorial image at right via grow-a-brain.