Hawk Feeds on Pigeons at Ohio Home Depot

Associated Press / Newsday.com ^ | February 25, 2004, 8:34 AM EST | A.P.

[RightField]

I should have read the dateline of the article first! There it is in black and white: North Olmsted. Duh...

My daughter is moving to Cincinnati in August. She's California born and raised, and has never seen snow!)

[MJemison]

A red-tail hawk preyed on the smaller cats at my folks place. (He was very good at it). We have a pair of sharp-shin hawks that keep the English sparrow population at a low level.

[crv16]

There was a pigeon in a local supermarket here in Manchester, NH. Store employee volunteered to take care of it, much to the chagrin of the local PETA freaks:

BB gun used to kill pigeon at city store
By GARY DENNIS
Union Leader Staff

MANCHESTER — A local woman involved in animal rescue said workers at a Manchester grocery store shot and killed a trespassing pigeon yesterday with a BB gun rather than let her trap and release it.

But Jim Prive, vice president and general manager of the Vista Foods store at Wilson and Valley streets, said his employees were just taking care of a health issue.

“We can’t have a bird flying around in a grocery store,” Prive said. “This was usual and customary . . . You go in with a BB gun, usually after hours, and take care of the problem.”

But Lori McMillan-Dunn, an Elm Street resident who said the presence of a pigeon inside the store was brought to her attention by a daughter who works at the Dunkin’ Donuts concession inside the Vista store, said the Audubon Society was on its way with traps that wouldn’t harm the bird.

“You throw some corn in there, catch it and release it somewhere else,” she said.

No deal, Prive said. “You can’t trap birds,” he said.

Dunn takes the extermination of the lone bird to heart. She rehabilitates animals in her home. Cats, dogs, birds and other creatures have been nurtured there, she says. Her family, including 18-year-old daughter Cassandra, has helped her.

And she says she makes regular donations to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and other animal rights organizations.

That explains why Dunn’s daughter, who was working in the Dunkin’ Donuts yesterday morning, was so disturbed as she watched Vista employees work to take care of the bird problem. Hours later, she was still crying as she waited on a long line of customers at the Dunkin’ Donuts counter.

And while a city health official says he doesn’t encourage the shooting of pests in stores, he said Vista employees did what they had to do.

“This was an imminent health hazard,” said Tim Soucy, chief of environmental health for the city of Manchester. “A bird flying around a grocery store really poses a problem. And they took action to eliminate it.”

Soucy went as far to say shooting the pigeon with a BB gun in this instance was “necessary.”

“You can’t have a bird that could be pecking at bags of food or leaving droppings on exposed produce,” he said.

Prive said it isn’t as if he has no feelings for animals that may get stuck in grocery stores. In a Laconia Vista store he oversees, a squirrel has been causing problems. An effort is under way to trap that animal, he said.

“I have a soft spot in my heart for squirrels,” he said.

Dunn said she still plans to file a complaint with Vista even though it’s too late for the pigeon. She even had Manchester police report to the store after she told them “a man was walking around with a rifle.”

That wound up being the Vista employee who dispatched the pigeon with a BB gun.

“There are more humane ways to deal with it,” she said. “And I was offering them one of those ways . . . I spend my life doing rescue work for any animal. They have a right to be and a right to a humane exit.”

Neither Prive, Soucy nor Dunn knew exactly where in the store the bird was shot. By all accounts, no customers witnessed the incident. Prive said his employees generally try to get a nuisance bird into the back area of the store.

“People will say it’s just a bird but I don’t agree with that,” Dunn said. “I mean, I don’t like snakes, but they’re here. I have to deal with them. I can’t just go around shooting them.”

[Chris Talk]

"and its not against any religion...

to try to dispose of a pigeon..."

Coopers hawks will now be in demand for big stores nationwide.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Good for this industrious hawk! It's kind of like having a cat around to eat the mice!!!!!!

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

We checked out the replacement cost and nearly croaked..We were given those fish when they were tiny..and now..Forget it!

Buy 'em small again. They're MUCH cheaper when they're small ;-). And put some netting over the pond to discourage the birds.

[Publius]

Spring is here, a-suh-puh-ring is here.
Life is skittles and life is beer.
I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring.
I do, don't you? 'Course you do.
But there's one thing that makes spring complete for me,
And makes every Sunday a treat for me.

All the world seems in tune
On a spring afternoon,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.
Every Sunday you'll see
My sweetheart and me,
As we poison the pigeons in the park.

When they see us coming, the birdies all try an' hide,
But they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide.
The sun's shining bright,
Everything seems all right,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

We've gained notoriety,
And caused much anxiety
In the Audubon Society
With our games.
They call it impiety
And lack of propriety,
And quite a variety
Of unpleasant names.
But it's not against any religion
To want to dispose of a pigeon.

So if Sunday you're free,
Why don't you come with me,
And we'll poison the pigeons in the park.
And maybe we'll do
In a squirrel or two,
While we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

We'll murder them all amid laughter and merriment,
Except for the few we take home to experiment.
My pulse will be quickenin'
With each drop of strych'nine
We feed to a pigeon.
(It just takes a smidgin!)
To poison a pigeon in the park.

[LizardQueen]

We've got red-tailed hawks up here that hunt in the median of the interstate all the time. Apparently the passing of the cars startles the rodents, which then move and are spotted by the hawks, that come screaming down on them and pluck them out of the grass in the median.

I enjoy watching them so much that I've almost wrecked the car watching them hunt. It's kind of hard to keep it between the lines when a good sized bird comes screaming along past your car at about 100 miles per hour, head down.

LQ

[BSunday]

"Some of the customers were upset. DEMOCRATS

Some said it was the neatest thing they had ever seen." REPUBLICANS

"Where can I buy one?" CONSERVATIVES

"Who can I sue?" LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

[Labyrinthos]

Very funny.

[vetvetdoug]

But can the hawk swim? TEDDY KENNEDY

[A CA Guy]

Drug the a clay pigeon and get it out of there before it goes for the shoppers seeking out bonus buys!

[7.62 x 51mm]

Here in southcentral Penna, we have plenty of hawks keeping the farm fields clear of rodents, snakes and pidgeons/ doves. They're awesome to watch soaring, scanning, diving and snaring their prey. The Game Warden says they're Red Tail Hawks, but I've never seen one close enough to verify it. They are reddish, though.

[wheels]

Must have been another type of hawk than an osprey. There is a good reason why they are called fish hawks, they feed on fish caught in the water. We have perhaps 20 nesting pairs of them within 3 miles of where I live. I see them catching fish almost every day, plus it's great to watch the parents teach the fledglings how to fly and catch fish.

[wheels]

Sorry Wombat101, those birds are most likely Ospreys. They eat fish, Peregrines eat rodents and pigeons and such. I've never seen one trying for fish. I have, however seen Ospreys all along the Jersey coast catching Mossbunker and other fish. Ospreys would be the ones most likely to roost on a large bridge while a peregrine would prefer tall buildings that would appear to be a cliff.

[Pagey]

Witnesses saw the hawk rip the pigeon apart and feed until nothing was left but feathers and claws.

If this could possibly happen to humans, I'd gladly volunteer, well, you know who I'd volunteer to be first. LOL

[Fury]

A red-tail hawk preyed on the smaller cats at my folks place. (He was very good at it). We have a pair of sharp-shin hawks that keep the English sparrow population at a low level.

Wish we had some hawks around my parents house, as we have an awful aparrow problem. The best traps I've seen to control sparrows are at:

www.birdtraps.com

I'm not a saleman, but the traps work!

[Wombat101]

It may be that there are ospreys nesting on the bridge as well, but i do happen to know for a fact that there are falcons on the bridge as well. I've lived here for 24 years and at least once every couple of years some idiot gets himself run down or into an accident because they stop to look at them or the nests. Every so often, the local fishwrap (the Staten Island Advance) runs a story on the falcons on the bridge. Perhaps what I'm seeing is the ospreys eating the churned up fish and the falcons harassing the other wildlife? LOL!

[lepton]

I was walking through our local Busch Gardens theme park a couple of summers and observed a hawk drop a partially-eaten rabbit in front of a little girl in the crowd. She went into hysterics, while her parents were up in arms about the park management allowing this to happen(?).

There is such a thing as being "over civilized".

In another direction, I'm sure it was quite gross. My spouse was driving some kids from an outing and on the way home, a bloody something splattered on the windshield from two birds that were fighting over their prey.

[Jimmy Valentine]

Same here. It's really neat to watch them break off dead branches from trees to build their nests.

They just fly up to it grab it and off they go. I have never seen one pick up a stick from the ground.

Regards,