pigeons

i have had a pigeon job going for awile now and am looking for some advise.

we have a paper mill we are trapping birds at ( cause they WONT let us shoot them )and are doing it on a bi-monthly contract. well the first trapping session i removed 92 birds over a week and a half of trapping. now the second go round i have only removed 29 so far. the prebaited areas i am using are not getting hit at all. the birds seem to be feeding off the property and just using the structures for a roosting site. i have tried placing the traps in the roosting areas and have had very little luck. 5 birds totle in the roosting sites and the rest in a gravel pit.

exclusion is out of the question becuase of the price they dont want to spend that must money to netting and spikes. plus it would take a year and a half for me to do it all.

so my queston is have any of yall had anything like this and what did you do?

there are still a 150 to 200 birds roosting there. i have been out there at daylight and stayed till mid morning and all the birds seem to be leaving. and i have been there late in the evening and all of them come back about 1 1/2 before dark.
what would you try next?????

oh ya and none of the birds removed were released.

bdrooks,

Basically it sounds like you are answering your own question in terms of the activity of the birds that are still there.

If they are feeding elsewhere and they don't want what you are offering, how would you trap them?

This is a case where it would appear you need to discuss with the management as to the constraints they have
placed on you, that are tying your hands from using other methods that could remedy the issue.

Will they let you work after hours, how high are the roosts? Can you reach them with a lift? Can you use a pellet
rifle after hours in a controlled setting?

Ultimately if they won't allow most of the methods and you can't resolve it with the method they are allowing, you will
be wasting your time and theirs and you won't solve the problem which results in frustrating, time and money lost.

This seems like a case where you needed them to understand what would and wouldn't work up front and maybe they
would have passed on hiring you, but at least you'd have been in a better situation.

Just .02......

Justin

I agree with Justin. The problem isn't you, it is the client. The choice you have to make is if you want to keep working with them or if you want someone else to take over if they won't change their minds.

This is like a NASCAR team you work for refusing to change tires for the track conditions and then complaining about not placing or even completing the race due to tire issues. You can recommend that they change tires, but if they don't take your recommendation you need to ask yourself should you stay or look for a new team. Over time, they will have limited success but nothing like they could if they listened to you.

The issue here is more of a business/personal issue. Do you keep working for them or do you pack up and let them hire someone else? On one hand, it is guaranteed work and despite how you feel about it the client should be satisfied with the work you're doing as long as they understand the limitations. On the other, you know that their plan isn't going to work and that they are wasting money with the possibility of them claiming that you don't know what you're doing down the road.

Both of these situations have Pros and Cons, and those of us who have been around for a while have dealt with this issue multiple times. Each situation is different and there is no simple answer as to which one to choose. But the first step is to discuss your concerns with them so they understand your limitations and make sure to set realistic expectations. After all, 20 years of trapping will be more expensive than excluding the primary loafing areas most of the time.

i really pushed the issue of shooting the birds before the contract was made up. they only wanted to REDUCE the population for birds to a managable level. well with 121 birds and counting i do beleave i am reducing the population. one of the proplems is that they have about 18 managers out there. all but 3 have seen a difference. those three managers would rank in the top 6 in the mill. those three for some resoan seem to think that the population is getting worse. ( i still dont understand how they think that )

i went back out this morning and checked the prebaited sites that are in some of the roosting areas and not the first one has been hit. these areas have been baited for a week now. i am really starting to not like doing any work for these great big companies. i know you cant please everyone but dang why cant some people just get there head out there hind end and open up their eyes a little. o wait that would make to mush sense.

thanks for the replies

bdrooks,

I'm glad you added to your post in details.

A couple of things that I think after reading it.

1) Multiple managers all having to agree what is and what isn't a manageable level sounds like a perfect recipe for disaster. We all at times work for folks where multiple folks have an opinion and power (husbands and wives being the simplest example). You are trying to please more people who each may have a different perspective.

2) A manageable pigeon population, going with #1, how does each manager agree whether they want to see 2 birds or 20 or 100? This is also a problem for you in terms of how they see your effectiveness.

The summary of these issues to me is the word expectations. The client's expectations versus those discussed when the contract was being formulated or proposed can vary widely. With pigeons I learned many people that hired me had inappropriate expectations in their minds, such as I don't want to ever see a pigeon fly over my residential home in the city ever again.... Some folks will not disclose these expectations fully without discussion.

One way to deal with this is to list out in the contract the expectations and have them initial it before proceeding.

With birds that leave 12 lbs on average per bird of droppings per year, I can't see how someone will feel they have a "manageable" population of a bird like pigeons other than zero. The droppings will always be coming down and even a few birds can make a massive mess in short order.

So I guess I'd say, what were the expectations they had for you when you started and were they vague or were they clearly defined? I've learned to each time make more and more clarity in this regard with pigeons and bats and exclusion/mitigation, not doing so will cost you in many ways not just financial.

How high are they roosting? If you can reach them with a ladder, go after dark when the birds are on roost. Have someone on the ground flashing a flashlight on them and someone else climb the ladder and just grab them. My buddy and I can catch over 100 birds a night this way.

some of these birds are up to 16 stories up with cat walks going up to different floors. i thought about that but i plan on being a little safer than that. but now if it were only 2 or 3 stories well we would skin that cat a little different.

if you can install drop nets, wait until all birds are in the location roosting, drop nets and remove by hand. Getting them all in one crack

do you have any info on those drop nets? i have heard of people using them before but have never seen one in action.

I've used game farm netting. 2"x2"

bird!

My "day job" is in a papermill and I've heard stories of some of the guys on graveyard using fire hoses to knock them down. This may not solve your problem, but it might help remove a few more? Also, our big problem is starlings, and management has hired a guy in the past to come in with a pellet gun. Their no firearms rule probably has an exception for law inforcement officers to carry firearms on mill site. Explain that your also a trained professional who needs the same exception. Good luck!

do you no of any felconary.trained birds of prey